The Melody of Ambition
by Sweet but Psycho
Summary: Billy has gone through life with a single ambition; to prove that he can lead the most influential rock band since Nirvana or  Led Zeppelin. His ambitions burn with more passion than any ranger's, which is why he'll do anything to see them come true.
1. Forever or Never

**A/N Go Rock Quads need some lovin' people! Garret is my favourite (with Tiffany as a close second) but I thought Billy would be a more entertaining perspective to write from. And more logical, since he's the leader.**

**Full summary: We all know Solana's and Lunick's story; the seven letters your MC sent to Spenser with the single minded hope of becoming a pokemon ranger. But what about the other side? Billy has gone through life with a single ambition; to prove that he can lead the most influential rock band since the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Led Zeppelin. His ambitions burn with more passion than any ranger's, which is why he'll do anything to make them come to fruition. Just watch him.**

**This disclaimer counts for the entire story: I do not own pokemon, or the characters created by the Pokemon Company. I'm merely using them for my own (and hopefully yours) entertainment. I also do not own any songs mentioned in this story; they are owned by their respectful bands. **

"Clyde, that's my spot," snapped an irritated looking Garret, who had just walked back into the T.V. room after going to get himself a drink. While he was gone, Clyde had quickly heaved himself off the floor and taken Garret's seat, since there was only three chairs to split between the four of us. It usually ended up being Garret and Clyde fighting over the final seat, since Tiffany point blank refused to sit on the ground in her dress (and would whine if we tried to make her) and my siblings knew better than to try to force me onto the floor.

"You didn't call it," Clyde replied, giving his older brother a self satisfied smirk.

"That doesn't matter! We had already fought over that seat, and I won, meaning its mine for today. Do you have no morals whatsoever? All I did was get a pop! I never steal your spot when you get up to do something."

Clyde mulled this over for a second. "Yeah…you do."

"No, Clyde, I don't. You're being completely immature. Now move before I dump my pop on your head!"

"Like hell you will! That'll make me all sticky."

"Who cares? As long as you end up off my seat; you don't even really need it. You're closer to a pokemon than a human, I think you would do better living outside."

Ugh, the bickering. I could never stand the bickering. What's the big deal with sitting on the floor anyways? It was carpet, so it wasn't like it was completely uncomfortable. But I knew neither of them would come to that conclusion or give in; Garret could moan and rant about something for hours if you let him, and Clyde was just plain stubborn.

"Clyde, Garret was there first. Get off the chair. Garret, shut up and sit down." Both of them did what I said; neither of them liked going up against big bro Billy, and would rather just go along with what I wanted. That's the way we've always been. Though Clyde did huff angrily as he got up, and Garret was looking rather smug, and seemed about to say something- despite me telling him to shut up- until I shot him a glare. He looked away and peace finally settled again in the room. Tiffany, who was sitting in the armchair across from me, sighed slightly and went back to watching T.V.. Normally, I wouldn't have been so blunt as to tell Garret to 'shut up,' but I remember feeling rather exhausted, and didn't feel like expressing myself in my usual cool manner.

We had spent most of the day rehearsing for our band. We were having trouble deciding what baseline Garret should be playing during a particular portion of a new song. After about fifteen minutes of Garret and I talking, Garret trying various approaches to the segment on his bass guitar, and me making everybody play that segment over and over to see if what he was doing would fit, Clyde and Tiffany had began their usual whining.

"This is boring; let's do something else and come back to it later." This was Clyde's usual approach- if it's hard, procrastinate.

"Let's do a cover song! How about…'Flow' by Cage the Elephant? We all love that song." Tiffany was actually the only one who had a real passion for that song.

I gritted my teeth, trying to stop myself from snapping at them. I only liked to use other people's songs when we were warming up; everything else should be completely original. Because no one ever gets famous from imitation.

"Tiff, you know how I feel about cover songs. And Clyde, this is what rehearsal is for. We will solve this problem now, because leaving it won't do any good." My voice wasn't rude or a yell, but they knew me well enough to hear the irritation behind my smooth words. Clyde huffed impatiently, and Tiffany pouted a bit, but neither of them said anything else. I looked at Garret, who seemed to be thinking to himself and ignoring the scene that had just happened. I couldn't blame him; it was one of many.

"Hmmm…maybe, could you guys play a few bars before our, ah, trouble spot- without me playing at all- and then just lead into it? I'll listen, and just try to figure out how to fit in," Garret suggested. I was very relieved to have him around during those rehearsals; he seemed to be the only other one- apart from me- who actually took the band seriously. I could tell he wanted to make it too, and it was a huge relief to have someone around to share my ideals with, as opposed to having to deal with a band of lazy idiots.

Not that Clyde or Tiffany were bad musicians or anything; they just never took it seriously, and it was starting to get on my nerves. Clyde could be so full of passion and musical innovation…when he was in the mood. Tiffany could have some very unique ideas about human nature and emotions, but only when she wasn't focused on when her next shopping trip would be, or whether her make up was just so. Garret, on the other hand, always paid attention during rehearsal, and he was a damn good guitar player. It seemed to be just him and me that lead the band and came up with the good ideas; I sometimes thought that if I wasn't around, he would have ended up playing electric guitar, as opposed to the bass he played now. He probably also would have lead the band himself, seeing how committed he seemed to be to it. But that's not how it was; I was born first, so I got the electric guitar and the role of leader, while he ended up with bass and the label of 'middle child'. Not that this seemed to bother him; he was always willing to go with my final word without much complaint, and he was an absolute genius with his bass guitar.

"One, two, three, four," Clyde counted us in, and we began to play, this time without Garret. He closed his eyes and listened, and once we were done, requested that we repeat the process. We did it once more after that, at which point he joined in with some, admittedly jagged, notes that complimented Tiffany's violin nicely. After about an hour of practicing, the bass was flowing smoothly and we could continue with retouching and improving on the rest of the song.

It had been a long practice; and Tiffany and Clyde's continuous whining only made it more so. But, however irritated I was with them, I couldn't deny that this particular tune was beginning to flow rather nicely. I wanted to put lyrics to it, but that was a whole new problem to tackle, and I decided that for the time being we would focus on the instrumental half.

I looked at the T.V. with unfocused eyes, my mind still fretting over our current project. My fingers played idly with a button on my black jacket, and I tuned out my sibling's chatter. I wasn't too pleased with them- well, Clyde and Tiffany specifically- and I hadn't been for a while. They didn't seem to see the band as something that could really be taken seriously. I had known for a long time that the only thing I wanted to do with my life was to live with music always around me; it was why I made my younger siblings learn how to play, it was why I forced them into practicing through all hours of the day and night, and it was why I analyzed how the media chose its stars and what those stars did to get that attention. While music was my only passion, I knew that if I wanted to spend my whole life doing it, I would have to catch and maintain media coverage so I could continue getting gigs and fans to pay for the basic needs of life.

Clyde and Tiffany were both all with me there; Tiffany would have loved nothing more than to be a famous celebrity and have the whole world tell her how on her fashion sense was, though she didn't seem to care about what she was famous _for_. Clyde, though not as concerned with fame itself, would literally salivate over the idea of becoming a rich rockstar. Though the bit he always focused on was 'rich' rather than 'rockstar'. Garret was the only one who seemed adverse to the idea of attracting media attention; to his mind, he was a smooth talking gentleman, and he saw media coverage as shallow and meaningless. He was going to have to grow out of that soon though, or he and I would have a talk.

"Ugh, guys I'm hungry," drawled Clyde from the floor. Oh no, I knew exactly what this was going to start.

"You're such a pig," Garret told him from his lofty position on the armchair. _And here we go again…_ I thought to myself. "We've already had lunch and a snack after rehearsing. Surely you can last until supper time?"

"Hmph. That depends; when's supper?" Clyde grunted, completely oblivious to his older brother's taunting, for now.

"When Dad gets home, just like always. We're not going to change the schedule just because you're a glutton."

"I'm not a glutton! It's been, like, two hours since I ate." Arceus, why couldn't they just get along?

"Dear brother, since you don't seem to know, I'll inform you that most people are still quite full two hours after they eat."

"Yeah, well, most people-"

"_Enough_," I interrupted. I was so sick of their bickering, of their lack of commitment, of their utter immaturity that I was letting myself snap and snarl at them more and more lately. I just couldn't understand their laziness; Clyde and Tiffany refused to apply themselves, and Garret wouldn't bother trying to find a gig or preparing a song when we landed one, he just wanted to jam. Didn't they know that to really make it as a band you had to actually work at it, just like everything else in life? I remembered the saying that my father repeated to me when I told him I wanted to be a rockstar.

"_Just remember boy: rock and roll eats its young_." It was a term that referred to all the teenagers that became obsessed with rock and started their own band in hopes of being famous, only to end up as a deadbeat stoner with no real job that would most likely OD by the age of twenty five. I swore that I wouldn't let this happen to me, or my siblings, since they were the only ones I deemed good enough to play alongside me. I kept myself well away from dangerous drugs, and watched my siblings like a fearow to make sure they did too. Clyde seemed to be the only one interested in experimenting with the dangerous stuff, and I was constantly having to pull him away from dealers and the like at parties.

Not that we never did anything we weren't supposed to; we had all tried pot, and I let the other three drink underage when we were out. Though Garret wouldn't be underage for long; his birthday was the next week, and he would be turning nineteen, so he was pretty excited to be able to go out and buy his own booze for the first time. Since he'd be turning nineteen on the nineteenth he would be buying champagne to celebrate his champagne birthday. That promised to be a fun day, hopefully with as little bickering between him and Clyde as possible.

I checked the digital clock that glowed from the DVD player: 4:55. Dad usually came home at around five, though he sometimes stayed until five thirty. I wasn't sure why, but lately he'd been more irritable than usual, muttering things under his breath and locking himself in his room for hours at a time. I assumed it had to do with his work, since he was always grumpiest right after he came home. He worked in downtown Fall City as a scientist (and a slightly mad one at that). His job was to work alongside the famous Professor Hastings and the Ranger Union to produce an improved styler for the rangers. The rangers did already have a styler, but it was rather shoddy and ran on battery power, meaning that occasionally during captures the battery would die and the ranger would have to abandon the capture and go back to base to recharge it.

Back then the Union was still rather unstable on its feet, with Fiore being the only region that actually had bases in it; if another region needed rangers they had to be shipped over from one of the four Fiore bases, most likely Fall City, since it was the biggest. Though I use the term 'biggest' in relative to the size of the other three bases. With the production of the new styler, the ranger population exploded, but back then the Union had a grand total of around fifty rangers under its belt, compared to the three hundred that were around after the new styler was made, during our time in the Go Rock Squad. A year after that, the total climbed to near five hundred, if memory serves. Needless to say, being a ranger became a more popular ambition after people knew there wasn't the chance of the styler's battery dying, leaving a ranger to fend for themselves against a potentially murderous pokemon. I think it was during that time the partner pokemon came into style, actually.

Though of course I knew none of that at the time. All I really knew about the Union then was that it was what my Dad worked for, and it had something to do with preserving nature. Nothing I really cared about.

It was almost six by the time my Dad came home that day. We had started cooking supper at around five thirty, when it became obvious that he was going to be late, so we were just finishing setting up when he arrived. And he had a bombshell of a surprise for us.

"Kids," he said as we all sat down at the table. "I've quit my job at the Union." We all froze what we were doing- even Clyde- and looked at him. It had been a pretty normal day; Dad went off to work, we slept in, had rehearsal, and listened to Clyde and Garret bicker until Dad got home. Needless to say, we weren't expecting him to tell us that he was unemployed when he did. Tiffany was the first to speak.

"So, we're, like, poor now?" she asked.

"No, Tiffany, we're not poor. I have quite a lot of money socked away; I've been saving for a while."

Another few seconds of silence. Then it was my turn to ask a question.

"What the hell, Dad?" Though it wasn't worded to ask what I actually meant, it got the gist across. Dad looked at each of us in turn, and then answered.

"You all know that I work with Professor Hastings and the Ranger Union, yes? Well, they have mocked and undermined my talent ever since I started working there. Apparently Hastings finished the styler last week, and didn't bother to tell me. I was still working on the blueprints when an aide- an _aide_ mind you- happened to mention that the plans for the new styler were ready to go. They have insulted me time and time again; and it's about time I got my own back. I will create my own Union, and it will completely destroy all of that arrogant Hastings' creations." I thought he was being rather hypocritical as to call Hastings arrogant, but there were more pressing matters to deal with.

"So, you quit your job to replicate a business that took almost ten years to become fully established and is loved by the general populace?" It was Garret that asked this, and I was happy it was him and not Clyde or Tiffany. He was the only one with the sense and demeanour to keep and criticism out of his voice; our father tended to be rather touchy.

"No, no. We won't replicate it," he told us, and I could sense all of my siblings freeze when he used the pronoun 'we'. The crazy old man was planning on getting us involved in this too? "The Union took that long to establish because it had to jump through all the legal hoops to make sure it was legitimate, and figure out a way to convey emotions, which requires exceedingly complicated technology. What I'm planning- I have all the plans in my room, I've been thinking about this for a while- is to use the black market to obtain what we need and deal simply with controlling pokemon for our use, rather than befriending them." He continued to tell us his plans, and I had to admit, it sounded intriguing. Hastings' next project was the super styler, which apparently would be three times more powerful than the one he just created. We would steal the plans for the super styler and modify it to control pokemon rather than befriend them. With that styler we would capture the legendary beasts and use their power to wreck havoc, overloading the Union and making the citizens hate them. Afterwards, our organization would swoop in and stop the destruction, playing the hero. The Union would be destroyed and our organization would take over.

I was actually quite interested in these plans. He seemed to want to create some kind of syndicate, and I started to form my own plans for gaining the band media coverage through it. Syndicates always gained a lot of press coverage, and if we were the higher ups in this organization, and if we made sure to always have our instruments then our band would get a lot of coverage. It may not be positive coverage, but media was media, and you could get famous off positive and negative media attention. It was a perfect opportunity for us, and by the end of his explanation I was all for starting this thing up. Apparently, I was the only one that was convinced though.

"That's my plan," Dad finished. "I'll leave you four to talk amongst yourselves and decide how you feel." He got up from his chair and left, leaving his supper untouched and us alone at the dinner table.

"He's lost it," Clyde said as soon as he was gone. "He's finally completely lost his mind."

"Our dad…is a legitimately mad scientist." Garret agreed, sounding almost awed by the fact.

"How are we going to get shopping money once his savings run out?" Of course, all Tiffany could think about was how this would affect her shopping.

"Guys, really, compared to some other organizations, his plan is really quite sane. It's not like he's trying to rule the world, he's just destroying a business, something that is happening constantly." They all looked at me, apparently surprised I seemed to be for this idea. "And think about it; imagine how much press coverage a criminal rock band would get. It's the perfect opportunity to get our band off the ground. I say we go along with this; he's obviously got it well planned."

There was silence for a few seconds as the other three mulled my words over. Clyde was the first to speak.

"It would be a nice break in the monotony," he said; I was a little surprised to hear the word 'monotony' come from his mouth- he was usually one for small words- but didn't interrupt. "And you're right. Let's go for it."

"I heard once that successful syndicates have a lot of money; I'm in," Tiffany said. Garret was the only one left. He looked at Clyde, Tiffany and I, and I could tell he was still not for this. Forming a criminal organization was another no-no in his way of thinking, just like media coverage. I could see he thought of it in the same way he thought of media; shallow and meaningless. But the rest of us were for it, and there wasn't much sense in defying all three of us. He didn't want to be left out.

"Fine," he said. Just 'fine'. Garret was opposite to Clyde in that way, he leaned towards big words, so this was uncharacteristically short of him. But that didn't matter. Because now we had decided; we were going to be a part- a big part- of a criminal organization. And so it began.

All because I said so.

**Oh Billy, you control freak. This took a while to write; I always have a hard time deciding on the narrative, and I had to write the outline for it too. **

**Garret will give a big thank you speech to whoever votes in my poll; it's located in my profile. I don't know whether I should write my own songs for these guys, or use pre-existing ones. I have never written a song before, but I feel like they deserve some originality. But that would really slow down updates, and I don't know how good I am. So help me out, and vote in my poll! Because who doesn't want to hear Garret give a thank you speech? *Tell me in a review if you voted if you want to be mentioned specially***

**Also…anyone wanna beta this? PM me baby!**


	2. Eyes on Fire

**Well, I have five votes in my poll, but I only know the identity of one of them. She didn't specifically SAY she wanted to be mentioned, but whatever. Garret, take it away.**

**Garret: Marlinmarlen, and everyone else who participated in the poll, your vote(s) have helped decide the future of this fic, and possibly others. For that, we humbly thank you. Also, in response to Marlinmarlen's review…yes, Clyde has always wanted to do stupid and dangerous things. It's because he's a stupid and dangerous person. He thinks by doing it- or trying to- he's "keeping up with the trends". Not to mention-**

**Clyde: Shut up, you prat!**

**Garret: I wasn't done! **

**Clyde: You're NEVER done.**

**Billy: Be quiet and focus you two. You're delaying the chapter. Also, to Almiaranger…from what I've seen, most every older sibling longs for the kind of control I have over my siblings. Yes, it definitely does make life much easier. Now, continuing with the story.**

* * *

The first step, of course, was gathering followers. Tiffany and I were in charge of that, since I was the best at convincing people and Tiffany…is a girl. It never hurts to have pretty girl on your side help when trying to talk people into doing something you want. Which is also why Clyde didn't help with that bit; he was rather overprotective of Tiffany, and tended to become quite angry at people who looked at her the wrong way. I would have liked to have Garret help- since he was amazing with his words and could spin anything to his favour- but he still wasn't quite on board with the whole 'let's start an illegal organization' thing by that point. I didn't want to risk him showing a lack of confidence in the plan. So that left just Tiffany and I.

Our first targets would be the people that would later become the mass that would make up our base of grunt workers; the ones that are pathetic on their own, but with their shear numbers manage to pose a threat to anyone opposing us. They were the ones we rounded up at private clubs, the uneducated, gullible ones who were just scraping by on minimum wage, and would love a chance to make a bit more money. Tiffany and I managed to round them up by the dozens at every rally we held, and by the end of that round we had close to one hundred grunt workers under our belt. We didn't bother going for people with higher education to fill the position of higher ranking grunts- we simply promised the workers we had that, if they worked hard enough, they would receive a promotion and a pay raise. Even among the uneducated, there were bound to be a few that were intelligent enough to be able to handle jobs of more sensitivity. These were jobs like moving and operating special technology, or keeping citizens and rangers out of the way in the final stage. Things that wouldn't take place for a while. The plan was that, by the time any sensitive jobs had to be handled, the grunts worthy of taking the job would have proven themselves, so we'd have the proper hierarchy of workers.

The next group of people needed were scientists; Dad may have been brilliant, but he couldn't do everything by himself. We wouldn't need nearly as many scientists- five or six at most- but they would also be much harder to recruit. The more intelligent someone is, the more mistrusting and cynical they are of the world around them. Unless they happen to be a socially inept prodigy; but it would be beyond lucky if we found someone like that. Instead, our dad pointed us towards some of the more greedy scientists that he knew of- we tried to get the ones that were the least known (since they would be more likely to grab at a chance to be known) but with the highest education. It was a difficult balance to find, but in the end Tiffany and I managed to gain our base of six scientists to help Dad. We would catch them as they were headed home- usually to some dank apartment, that must have made them bitter- and asked for a private word, then gave them the rap. We- well, I did most of the talking- tried to appeal to their greedy side ("If you so choose to work with us, I can promise you a fifty percent pay increase") along with their bitterness at being forgotten ("You will be part of an organization that will change the world; your name will go down in history") and for the most part, it worked. There were only one or two people that refused the offer, the other six readily took it.

Once we had all the people we needed working for us the next step was to obtain funds. Dad did have a fair amount stashed away, but it was only enough to cover purchasing the Dusk Factory in Fall City (which would serve as research grounds, a secondary base and a place for mass producing our own stylers) and to build our permanent base, which simply _had_ to be completely state-of-the-art. There wasn't enough money there to support paying one hundred and six workers and keep food on our own table. So, we took the most common route that syndicates take to get money- we allied with Team Rocket. Little known fact: the Go Rock Squad was actually a branch off of Team Rocket, meaning Giovanni was the true head of the Go Rock Squad, and we were all, by default, members of Team Rocket. By allying with them we received enough finances to support all of our workers and ourselves and still have a little extra in our pocket at the end of the day. Team Rocket, in return, could demand any kind of information we knew or had a way of knowing about anything in Fiore, and we would also supply a base for Rocket members that were travelling to Fiore for one reason or another. Neither request was ever made by the time the Go Rock Squad was defeated, though Team Rocket didn't seem too peeved that they had given us an obscene amount of money and got nothing back for it. Makes me wonder how much money they really have, and how they get it.

But regardless, with workers, funds, and bases out of the way, the next step was to work on recreating the Super Styler in our favour. But, unfortunately, the Super Styler was still not made by that point, and so we had nothing to do but wait, since we didn't want Hastings to know about our organization, and therefore be prepared for a possible attack. We ordered that workers did not wear their uniforms in public (designed by Tiffany) and did not talk about it with anyone. It was really business as usual while we waited for Hastings to finish the Super Styler, except that now Dad was home all day, and talk about what to call our organization replaced talk of what to call our band; a conversation that usually dominated the dinner table and the time in between rehearsals. It took a while to decide, but eventually we came up with something everyone agreed on.

"It should have something to do with music," was a point that we kept returning to, usually spoken by Tiffany.

"Yeah, I agree. What about…Team Melody? Team Rhythm? Team…" Garret paused, considering for a second. "Beat it?"

"That was way too much of a reference to Michael Jackson, little bro," I told him. Garret had lost the battle for the armchair today, but smiled slightly from the floor nonetheless. He was the only one out of us that really like Michael Jackson. "But I like the idea of having our name be two words. That way our members won't get the derogatory nickname the Team Rocket members sometimes get, being called 'Rockets'." The word itself wasn't derogatory, but it was always said in a sneering manner. I didn't want that.

"Team Awesome," Clyde yawned from the chair he was slumped in, apparently not paying attention.

"That is beyond lame, Clyde," Garret told him. Clyde, for once, didn't make a big deal out of the insult. He just shrugged and adjusted his legs so they were hanging over one armrest while his head rested against the other. His big body didn't quite fit, and he looked almost comical trying to fit himself into a comfortable position.

"Why do I get the feeling that my youngest brother is a little tired?" I asked mildly. Conversations like these were a great way to de-stress, and I was enjoying the mild atmosphere.

"Ugh, 'team' is _so_ overused. Team Rocket, Team Aqua, Team Magma, Team Galactic," Tiffany said, ignoring my comment. "Why can't we do something original? Like, a synonym of 'team'?"

"Garret's our wordy boy," Clyde said, still trying to get comfortable. "Synonyms for 'team'. Go."

"Bunch, club, faction, gang, organization, league, ummm," he paused, collecting his words in his head. "Outfit, unit, party, aggregation, set, band, rig, sect, span, squad, tandem, troupe, crew, posse …that's all I can think of for now."

"That's plenty," I told him. Geez, that kid really knows his way around words.

"I kind of like 'faction'. That makes it sound way cooler. The Musical Faction, the Rhythm Faction; see? So much better than 'team,'" Tiffany said.

"I like squad, actually. The music squad sounds pretty cool to me," Garret said. I happened to agree with him, though Tiffany apparently didn't.

"Ew, no way. 'squad' just sounds dirty somehow."

"I actually like 'squad' too," I said. Tiffany pouted a bit. Being the youngest and the only girl, she all too often got her own way, as long as it didn't contradict with mine. She wasn't used to not getting her own way. She was also quite the Daddy's Girl. "Hey, Clyde. You going to make this a tie? Which do you like, 'squad' or 'faction'?"

"Mmmphh. Which one does Billy like?" he asked the room at large.

"Squad," I told him.

"You da man," he said, yawning again. For someone with so much brawn, he certainly got tired out quickly. Honestly, rehearsal wasn't that exhausting. But still, he had the right idea.

"Damn straight, little bro," I said, smirking slightly. "Squad it is. So what are we going to put with that? 'Music' and 'rhythm' are too general."

"What about our genre then? The Rock Squad." Garret suggested. Rock Squad sounded pretty cool, but would we just end up being called the 'Rocks'? Not only was that derogatory, but it was way too similar to 'Rockets'.

"Whooooo. Go Rock Squad," Clyde cheered. He added 'go' just to add enthusiasm, but I liked the way it all sounded together.

"The Go Rock Squad," I mused out loud. Garret caught on.

"The Go Rock Squad, and their hot prospect band…the Go Rock Quads."

"Oh Garret. You and your little word plays," Clyde said, now curled up like a meowth on the armchair. Garret looked a little offended, but I interrupted before he could start anything.

"No, no. I like it. It sounds…energetic."

"Yeah. Not to mention the outfits Tiff designed for the grunts look like they're for go-go dancers."

"Shut up Garret. I think my outfits are great." Tiffany defended.

"Never mind the outfits." I waived them away impatiently. "Do we all like 'Go Rock Squad' for the team and 'Go Rock Quads' for us?" Everyone made their assent (well, Clyde mumbled something incoherently from the chair, but we all assumed it was an assent). "Good. Then we'll just talk to Father about it and see if he agrees as well."

* * *

Over the next week, Father (who had agreed to the names we had come up with) and his team of scientists managed to get our own private network set up and tapped into the Ranger Union's database. We now had the profile of every ranger registered with the Union, and we- we being Garret, Dad and I, since Tiffany and Clyde were too lazy- made a point of memorizing the profiles of notable rangers. This included all of the base leaders, along with a couple of higher ranked Fall City rangers, one Ringtown ranger with a flawless record and a goal to 'help spread the joy of friendship to pokemon and people' (this seemed rather barf worthy, so we assumed the Union held him in high regard) and one particularly frightening Wintown ranger. Chris Edwards, who had a slightly spotted record ('use of excessive violence towards people of suspicious nature' came up a few times) and multiple legendary captures under his belt. We'd have to keep an eye on him. There were no Summerland rangers that posed any kind of threat, presumably because Summerland was so calm it didn't need that kind of protection.

With all of the steps taken care of, the only thing left for us to do was to wait. We moved into the Dusk Factory (having remodelled part of it to resemble a home) and did just that, for approximately two months.

Finally, on May twenty-third, we received confirmation that the Super Styler had been finished via a hacked transmission from Hastings to Spenser of the Ringtown base. He sounded loud and excited, and was going over to Ringtown to show him. Unfortunately, by the time we had assembled the grunts that would accost him and steal the styler, he would have been already almost to Ringtown, so we couldn't get him on the way there. But that was not too much of a worry; it would make more time to set a good trap on his way back to Fall City. We were going to set up two minor explosions in Krokka Tunnel that would cause rockslides; one that the grunts were ordered to set off as soon as he was past the first explosive point to prevent him from running back towards Ringtown, and one as soon as they were clear of the tunnel- with Hastings still behind them and the second explosive point, which was near the exit. This would stop him from escaping too soon and alerting the Fall City ranger base that he had his Super Styler stolen from him, since we needed to give the grunts time to make it back to the base without tearing through the streets and attracting attention. We didn't plan on leaving Hastings trapped in Krokka Tunnel for too long- just long enough to give our grunts time to get away. We assumed a ranger would notice him pretty quickly amidst the dual rockslides.

That seemed to be an oddly busy day, considering how uneventful things at the Union had been over the past two months. A new Ringtown ranger had been registered that day as well, and I took a quick glance at her profile, not expecting anything special. Solana Mills, female, no current partner. Her picture depicted a teenage girl who looked thoroughly over-excited. Nothing really caught my eye until I read, under education, 'did not attend Ranger Academy'. Oh-ho? That was odd. Ever since the Union got its feet under it, it was necessary for every ranger to have graduated from the newly established Ranger Academy in the Almia region. So how did this girl land a job as a ranger when she had absolutely zero knowledge? What could Ringtown gain by taking on a ranger that they would have to teach from the ground up? It was a bizarre move on the Union's part, to say the least.

But, regardless, by mid afternoon Hastings was set to start the walk back to Fall City, accompanied by the rookie ranger (whose partner status had since changed from 'not partnered' to 'partner pokemon: plusle'. Oh joy, another cutsie cheering pokemon to go with the other ranger's minun). I wasn't too worried about the rookie; she was just one very inexperienced ranger; I was more than certain that the two men we sent after Hastings would have no problem overpowering her and an old man.

So, after two months of waiting to be able to implement our first plan, we had to wait more to find out how we did with that plan. We were planning on using the modified Super Styler as our means of communication, so since we didn't _have_ the Super Styler yet we couldn't even request updates on how the grunts were doing. This was just way too much waiting, and my siblings decided to kill the time by discussing all the ways that the mission could go wrong.

"Wait…guys, what if the rockslide, like, crushes Hastings and that ranger? Could we be charged with murder?" Tiffany fretted.

"Nah. It's called manslaughter if it's an accident," Clyde replied.

"Clyde, manslaughter is a _degree_ of murder. Just like second and fist degree," I told him.

"You know, those grunts aren't the most intelligent. I wouldn't put it past them to set the explosives wrong and hurt themselves," Garret considered, which didn't help put Tiffany's mind at ease.

"What if the ranger's actually really good, and manages to fend off the grunts?" Clyde interjected.

"Maybe he left the Super Styler at the base."

"How do we know the grunts will put the explosives in the right spot?" And the like. They pattered on and on about all the ways this could go wrong. I started to get a headache after about ten minutes of it.

"Guys. We've trained those grunts and gave them an idiot proof assignment. Have a little trust," I interjected smoothly. There was silence for a few seconds, and then Clyde muttered something about getting a sandwich and left towards the kitchen. Bit more silence, and then:

"But still. Those grunts are pretty stupid. They could really easily mess up."

"Garret."

"Sorry."

And so, we waited in silence. Clyde came back ten minutes later with his usual super sized sandwich and took a seat in a chair. I had to admit, I was quite happy that we moved temporarily into the Dusk Factory; the rec room there was equipped with a love seat, a couch and two armchairs, meaning there was easily enough room for all of us. Tiffany and I were sitting on the coach- I was taking up about two thirds of it so I could put my feet up, but Tiffany didn't seem to mind- and Clyde and Garret were on their own armchairs. Tiffany said she missed watching them race to the armchair whenever we walked into the rec room, but I was willing to give up that bit of entertainment for the reduction in fighting it presented.

About half an hour later (we had turned the TV on to fill the silence) Dad came by and told us that the grunts were back.

"Finally!" Garret exclaimed, while Clyde and Tiffany cheered. I smiled to myself and got up, following behind Father as he led the way to where the grunts were waiting to give their report, my other siblings lined up behind me. It was really only that first assignment that all five of us were present to hear the report. After that the event lost its excitement slightly, and a grunt would usually just report to Dad, me, or one of my siblings, and they would tell the others what had happened. But then, the five of us went into the lobby where the two grunts were waiting together, and stopped with Dad in the middle and Garret and I flanking him on one side and Clyde and Tiffany on the other. The two grunts seemed a little intimidated by the full audience. They hesitated, a little unsure of where to begin. I decided to help them out.

"All right boys. From beginning to end; what happened?"

They started explaining, intermittently interrupting each other in their haste and stopping midway through a sentence, unsure on how to proceed. It sounded like it went pretty much according to plan- in fact, these particular grunts actually showed some intelligence and managed to separate Hastings and his rookie with the first rockslide. However, that didn't make up for their screw up of the second one. Apparently, they set off that rockslide after Hastings and the ranger had passes the explosive point, leaving a completely pointless pile of rocks behind the two, instead of between them and the exit.

"So, in other words, you failed to trap Hastings and then went running through the streets of Fall City?" Dad questioned. He always worded himself smoothly, but never bothered to keep anger or irritation out of his deep gravely voice.

"Er, yes sir. But, he, uh- we," the grunt stumbled, trying to form his words and think of an excuse.

"We took a lot of deserted alleyways on the way here," the second grunt said lamely.

"Did any rangers follow you here?" Father asked.

"No," both the grunts responded in unison, and they seemed confident in their answer, so no one pressed the issue any further.

"That's good, at least. But still, you have brought our organization under the eye of the media earlier than planned. That is unacceptable."

_He's so melodramatic_, I thought as I looked at him berating the grunts. _Honestly, they got away just fine. And it's only a couple hours earlier._

The grunts were dismissed after a few more minutes of Dad giving berating them. They left with shoulders slumped, but with no actual punishment having been dished out to them. Though I wasn't exactly sure how we were planning on punishing misbehaving members.

"Well, shall we watch the news then?" Garret suggested after they had left. "Considering how little has been happening, I'm sure this scandalous event will be on sooner rather then later."

"Hm. Most likely. Come, we'll see what the media knows over supper."

And so it was that we were eating Mr. Noodle and sitting in the rec room that was built into a factory that we first heard of our media coverage.

"Troubling news today in the area of the Ranger Union," the newscaster started out, drawing all of our attention at once to the television. "The Fall City ranger base has reported that a mysterious organization has started up in Fiore. The organization, which calls itself the 'Go Rock Squad' had apparently cornered the Ranger Union's Chief of Technology Professor Hastings in Krokka Tunnel and stole from him what was reported to be 'a very important package'." Huh. So they didn't want to release that we had got a hold of an extremely powerful styler. "The professor was en route from Ringtown to Fall City when it happened, and was accompanied by a ranger by the name of Solana Mills." The picture that was on her profile came up in the corner of the screen while the newscaster kept talking. "The two members of the organization managed to separate the ranger and the professor by means of a rockslide, which is speculated to have been caused by explosives. Rangers warn citizens to stay out of Krokka Tunnel and to report any suspicious characters…" and the list of precautions went on for a while, followed by footage someone had taken of the two grunts running through the city. The newscaster finished the story stating that they would announce any new information as it became available.

The footage may not have been of me, and they may not have known anything about our band yet, but it was the closest I'd tasted to media coverage. This was going to happen; pretty soon now my siblings and I were going to be reported on television as commanders and musicians in the Go Rock Squad. This could be the ticket to the life I've always dreamed of.

I couldn't stop grinning throughout the entire story.

* * *

**So what'd ya think? I'm not sure I liked it…not much is happening, and I haven't been able to express my characters much yet. I tried to put in dialogue to make it more interesting…and no adventures for them yet D: But that'll be soon! Vote in my poll (if you haven't already). It closes when the third chapter goes up!**


	3. Build God, Then We'll Talk

**A/N I am writing this on what is probably the oldest computer still functional. My laptop (his name is Bronius) has caught a VERY BAD virus, and won't be up and working for a couple days yet (poor Bronius!). If your browsing Google images, and a scan starts up and tells you that you have a lot of viruses, don't run the program it offers. That is the REAL virus. Tricky thing.**

**Also…I know I'm going to regret doing this, because I'll be writing future chapters, then I'll want to check something, and I'll go "rawr! Why is chapter 3 inexplicably missing? Oh yeah…" and then I'll remember I wrote it on a different computer. With a weird keyboard. But I was going mental without writing, so I have to take what I can get. I actually wanted to work on my other story, but I had already started the next chapter, and Bronius has it. So it is with the Go Rock Quads we do trot.**

* * *

After a couple of days working with the Super Styler, Dad had it completely suited to our purpose, and a few grunts were let loose to test it out on random pokemon throughout the city. They were dressed as researchers so no one would question them fiddling with a gadget, or interacting with pokemon, and they were told keep out of public sight. So aside from a few speculations on the news, talk of the Go Rock Squad died down.

The first grunt returned after a couple days reporting that his styler had worked perfectly in controlling a wild machoke, much to our pleasure. However, he also claimed that said machoke was released from his control when captured by a ranger. The machoke had been ordered to attack the Joy Clock Tower that loomed in the middle of the city, which was what had attracted the ranger's attention. The grunt seemed more preoccupied with the fact that he didn't get to see the tower destroyed, but Father saw the possible hole in his plan, and instantly started working on trying to make the pokemon under our styler's influence able to block attempts to befriend them from a ranger's styler. Judging from the angry muttering and the occasional smashing sound, the attempt didn't go well.

The second grunt returned also claimed that the multiple grimer he placed under his control were compliant, but were released when captured by a ranger who saw the grimer as a threat to the city's water. Father grew even more upset at this, retreating to his lab for hours at a time, trying to figure out a solution to our problem.

Regardless, we still considered the new styler a success, and got to work on trying to locate possible places where a legendary pokemon would be hiding. The five of us (I made Tiffany and Clyde help this time) began researching old legends of the Fiore region. Clues weren't hard to find, and a legend that kept coming up was of the four challenges of the Jungle Relic. Apparently, if all four challenges were completed, some 'great calamity' would happen. There were other places that we wanted to search, but this one seemed the most likely to hold information about the legendary beasts. We made plans to go there in a few days ourselves, after we had mastered how to use our stylers.

Father gave us the devices, which looked almost identical to a ranger's styler except ours were black instead of red. We were told on how to use them, and set out practicing on various city pokemon. Unlike a ranger's styler, ours didn't have a release button, so after we captured a pokemon and made it do a few tasks, we would just order it to roam the city and harass rangers. Which was pretty amusing to do at first, even if we didn't actually get to see the various snubbal and makuhita attacking rangers.

After about ten minutes of capturing various pokemon effortlessly, Tiffany seemed to get bored. What short attention spans sixteen year olds have.

"Billy," she whined. "This is lame. Why do we need to practice this? We just aim and shoot, I think I got it by now," she said, turning and capturing another pokemon to make her point. I watched vaguely as the capture disk made automatic circles around an unfortunate rattata, without Tiffany having to do so much as move a muscle.

"Little sis." I sighed, turning to my selfish sibling. Well, they're all selfish, but Tiffany was selfish in her own special way. "We're practicing to get to know how the stylers work. And to make sure that they _do_ work. Think about it; do you really trust what the grunts say?"

"But that's another thing! Why do we have to use the same boring stylers as the low lives on this team? We're commanders, we should have something special."

"Hm, I actually agree with that," Garret said, joining in the conversation. "We should have something that shows without a doubt that we are far better than the grunts on this team. Something to show off the musical aspect of this squad." I have to admit, I was intrigued now. A musical styler? That would be…cool.

"Hey, when did my little brother get into this little game? Garret bro, I thought you were against it," I said lightly, my thoughts still wrapped around the idea of making our stylers musical somehow.

"The idea…has grown on me." Ha. No, that wasn't why. He was starting to get into the Go Rock Squad because he was impressed with how well the stylers worked. He thought we were doomed to failure before, but now that it looked like there was a chance of success, hey, why not jump on board? But that wasn't important.

My mind had wandered back to my plan of being a criminal band. What if our band, our music, was itself how we controlled pokemon? That would bring our music to a whole other level. It would be groundbreaking, and a sure way to attract attention. I felt a small smile curl up on my face; I think this may have been the closest I've ever come to an epiphany.

"Guys," I drawled. "I have an idea. What if we find a way to make our instruments our stylers? It would really underline how musical we are. Not to mention it would be an amazing way to practice conveying emotions through our music." There was a few seconds of silence while the other three digested this plan.

"It would be the epitome of rehearsal." Garret was the first to comment, sounding impressed.

"Perfect! That is so exactly what I mean," Tiffany said, sounding pleased.

"But dude, how are we going to do that?" Clyde finally spoke up, sounding confused. I looked at Garret; he had been spending some time with Dad while he worked on the styler, so I assumed he had some idea of how the things worked. Garret was the only one who enjoyed learning about technology.

"It actually would be quite easy. I know how these are wired, I could actually probably do it myself." Garret replied. My smile grew wider.

"Perfect. Well, times a-wasting boys. And Tiff. Might as well get started on that now little bro."

It took Garret about an hour to figure out how to wire our stylers into our instruments. He ended up just taking most of the styler apart and just embedding a capture disk slot into strategic places on our instruments. He seemed to just remake the styler right inside the instruments, making them attuned to the vibration points on each.

After he was finished we all picked up our instruments and went back to where various pokemon were milling about. Clyde was complaining about his new drum; he was used to playing on a full set, but since he obviously couldn't carry that freely across the region, he was downgraded to a bongo drum. Which was simply not stylish enough for him.

I wondered vaguely what Father would say when he found out that we had tampered with our stylers. He probably wouldn't be pleased, even if they did work. If they didn't, he would be furious. Oh well, it was really only the grunts that found him scary- any one of us could deal with him, no problem.

We got to the scrap yard, where the wild pokemon were, and I'll have to admit I was stumped on how this was supposed to work. Did we just arbitrarily play a tune? I looked to Garret to see what he did. He was the one who fused our instruments and stylers, after all. Clyde and Tiffany both looked at him too.

He didn't seem uncomfortable with the attention, and merely started strumming out a riff he had grown attached to. It was very smooth, but with a fast beat as well. I quite liked the sound, but we had yet to find a spot to put it in one of our songs.

I could see him really getting into the music as he closed his eyes and concentrated. After a few seconds, he strummed a particularly strong sounding cord and, much to my pleasure, the capture disk on the front of his guitar shot out and began circling a raticate, soon capturing it. He stopped playing, and the large rat pokemon toddled over to him, twitching slightly, apparently awaiting orders.

"Nicely done," I congratulated him, genuinely impressed. Tiffany giggled and raised her violin up; apparently she wanted to try too.

Her playing was fast and energetic, growing in pitch until, at the top note, her own capture disk popped out and circled a misplaced pikachu, successfully capturing it as well.

"Yeah-ha!" Clyde, for the first time in a long time, was actually getting into his playing. He began to beat on his new drum, singing to himself as he did so.

"_Readymade, readymade_

_Steady as the rhythm rolls_

_Readymade, readymade_

_And this is how the story goes_"

It was one of our more recent songs, and though we hadn't set a bongo to play in it, Clyde made it flow quite well. Like I said, he could be a musical genius when he was in the mood. Just like the other two, who were now playing along with him, his capture disk popped out of the bottom of his drum and encircled a nearby ratatta.

The playing was growing in volume and intensity, and though I had started to play along, I was waiting for my solo to try and capture a pokemon. Right before it, in a few beats of rest, Clyde turned to me with a mischievous grin.

"Aw, clean it up Billy." I smiled, and started on my fast and furious solo. Pointing my guitar, my capture disk shot out at the height of my playing, and captured a rogue snubbal. Pleased, I ended off my solo and we finished the rest of the song, with Clyde singing.

Even after the song was finished, we didn't fully stop playing. We were each idly playing, and kept doing so as we talked.

"Mmmm, you know what else we need?" Clyde said, pattering away on his drum. "Some sort of opening. Like, a short little song to play when we meet a ranger, or want to make an entrance."

"To really highlight our musical roots, and to give introduction." Garret agreed, strumming idly, apparently working on something new. This was one of the few times we were all in tune, metaphorically anyway. I actually thought Tiffany's violin might have been a bit sharp, but I didn't mention. It wasn't important anyway. The point was, we had hit our stride, and chances were, there wasn't going to much fighting during this practice. I lived for rehearsals like these.

"Well, I assume each of us has been writing a song?" I questioned, receiving three nods from my siblings. "Let's cut and paste then. We'll come up with something."

We rehearsed until dusk, creating our own little mini song- which ended up being a rather quirky and upbeat number- and perfecting Readymade, which Clyde had started to sing before.

* * *

A few days later we were set to head off to Olive Jungle with a couple grunts. The grunts' job was to distract any rangers and keep them out of the Jungle Relic while we explored it.

As expected, Father was not pleased with us meddling with the styler. At least not at first. When he actually looked at our instruments, he was silent for a few seconds, then said gruffly:

"Hm. Garret. Good work, boy." Garret seemed a little surprised, but pleased nonetheless. It wasn't often that Dad outright complimented us. Garret had been acting slightly smug ever since, much to Clyde's annoyance. They were snapping at each other quite a bit on the boat ride over (the boats were in fact supplied by Team Rocket, like our funds). The fighting was growing insufferable, but thankfully it wasn't a long ride. The grunts had departed a bit before us, so we assumed that they had the residential rangers good and distracted.

The walk to Olive Jungle was also a short one, since it was only a couple minutes from the hub of Summerland. Nonetheless, the sticky heat had already gotten to me by the time we entered the jungle. I cursed myself for wearing my overcoat, light though it was. A few minutes into the forest I gave up and took it off. Underneath I was just wearing a plain black T-shirt, but it was too damn hot to care about style. Clyde and Garret had both left their overcoats on the boat, and were wearing appropriate shirts underneath. Clever boys.

As I twisted around to tie my jacket to my waist, I noticed a movement in the bush beyond the path. And not a little movement either, whatever was in there was big enough to shake a full sized tree. I finished the knot and turned to face whatever was there. Smirking slightly, I kicked a rock about the size of my fist into where the creature was, my siblings watching silently. I heard an irritated growl and, lo and behold, out came a tyranitar. My soon-to-be favourite.

My smile grew as the beast lumbered towards us, looking agitated. I started to play, hitting my notes of the solo from Readymade, capturing the tyranitar. It stopped in its tracks and bowed its head slightly. There was a low growl rumbling in its throat, but it wasn't displaying any other signs of hostility. I knew it would do as I said.

"Stay close, but out of sight. I'll call you when I need you." It grunted slightly, then turned and hid off the path again.

"Coolest pokemon captured yet," Garret commented.

"True say little brother. Much better then a dirty raticate, huh?" I answered. Again, I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye, except this on was right on the path, and not too far from us. And wearing a bright red pullover sweater over black underarmor. A ranger.

"Huh? Who are you?" I smiled as I took in our new acquaintance. It was the one the Union had recently hired- the one that had never been to ranger school. Her plusle was at her side, looking similarly confused as it looked at us. I motioned to Garret to start our little intro.

"Even if your in a hurry, stop in your tracks!" He stepped forward, playing his little riff.

"Open your ears to our melodic attacks!" Tiffany continued, playing her violin.

"I'm really confused…" the girl muttered. Her plusle squeaked in agreement.

"The rhythm of rage pounds the ground," Clyde completely ignored this last comment, pounding his bongo furiously.

"Let the melody of ambition rise to the skies!" I strummed out my solo, and we all started singing together. The next bit seemed to help clear up who we were to the new ranger.

"If you don't know us, we'll cure your ignorance. Billy! Garret! Clyde! Tiffany! The Go Rock Squad's band of key-shaker-and-taker celebrities. A name once heard and never forgotten! Go Rock Quads!" We did our finale together, just as practiced.

"Hm, were we a bit flat? Oh well, doesn't matter. That's easily fixed." I mused. The ranger didn't look confused anymore.

_Lucky rookie. You get to be the first to meet us._

The girl looked a little angry, though unsure of what to do with herself in the face of four criminals. "Oh, you must be the new ranger the Union hired. Solana, was it?" I smirked at the alarmed look on her face as I said her name. "Well now, we're just here to take a look around. Since there's nothing really wrong with that, we'll just be leaving." I wondered if she was going to do anything to try and stop us.

She did.

"No way! Stop right there!" She yelled, apparently regaining her composure. She ran towards us- to what purpose, I can't fathom- and so I called out the tyrantitar from before. The great beast came charging out of the forest and swiftly punched the girl in the gut. Pretty hard to, judging from the force that she hit the tree with after she went flying. Tiffany squealed slightly in surprise, and Clyde laughed stupidly from my right, apparently amused by the sudden violence.

"Ah, that looked like it hurt," Garret commented slyly from my left, not sounding at all sympathetic. "Don't worry though. After all, it's not your fault you don't have the skill level to dodge yet," he called out over to her. She was sitting on the ground at the base of the tree, about fifteen feet away. Her plusle was skirting around her as she sat hunched over, apparently not sure what to do. I smirked as I walked over to where she sat.

As I got close, the plusle starting sparking its cheeks threateningly at me, but I paid it no mind. It didn't know what it was supposed to do, and didn't bother me as I crouched down in front of the girl. I was riding a bit of a high on the amount of control I had over the situation, and I wanted to take it just a bit farther. I put my finger under her chin and tilted her face up to look at me. She still looked pretty pissed, and I felt my smirk widen at the expression.

"Since you're obviously still a little confused about us, how about I give you a bit of an encore, hm?" The angry expression stayed, but she was obviously listening. "You took your job at the wrong time, sweetheart. There are tough times ahead for the Union, and pretty soon there's going to be no Union at all. But I think you'll have bigger things to worry about then just losing your job. Tah." I got up and walked back towards my siblings, who were all grinning like mad, and started in the direction that I knew we had to go in order to reach the relic as tyrantitar hid itself back off the path.

"Let's go."

**A/N POLL IS DOWN. As you may have guessed, the results were 3 people for using any song I liked, 2 for writing my own songs, and 1 for using songs from just one band. So, I'll mostly be using pre-existing songs (Whoever knows the artist of Readymade gets a free…request of some sort). But I may eventually take a stab at writing my own.**

**But also…only 3 reviews and 50 hits for this story. This story is better than you guys are acting!**

**Unless it's not…D :**

**Review?**


	4. Good Gone Girl

The rest of the walk to the Jungle Relic was uneventful, if extremely hot. I nearly sighed with relief when we reached the shade inside of the temple. The Jungle Relic itself was nothing impressive; just a plain statue with swirl patterns on it. Remembering what we had learned when we were researching about the place, I told Tiffany to look behind the statue for the switch that would open the passage to the lower levels.

After a few seconds of rustling behind the statue, Tiffany let out a little 'ha!' and we heard a clicking sound. The statue split in two, sliding away and revealing a staircase leading down. Clyde let out a low whistle.

"Pretty epic…"

"Way to ruin the moment, Clyde," Garret said.

"C'mon guys." I smiled. "Let's go spelunking." I led the way down the stairs with my siblings following in behind. At the bottom of the stairs was a large underground cave, with smaller caves in the walls, each presumably leading to another room. There were small puddles on the ground, and it was very dark and moist. I looked around; there were too many little caves and passages to hope to search one at a time before a ranger discovered us down here.

"Alright guys, split up. Tiff, you explore that half of this room. Clyde, you explore the farther half. Garret and I will continue on and see what else is in here. We'll meet back here in twenty minutes, okay?" The other three nodded in affirmative, and went off on their way. Tiffany darted into the nearest cave, and Clyde, Garret and I went farther into the cave. Clyde ducked off into a cave about halfway down, and Garret and I went through a naturally formed hallway a little after. The next room held more interest than the last one.

In the middle of the room, on an elevated platform, lay a life-sized statue of Entei. Garret and I both started walking over to it, paying no heed to the other little caverns or the wild pokemon milling about. The path that led up to it had four unlit torches on each side. I paused and looked at them.

"Four torches for the four dragon challenges?" I mused out loud.

"Seems logical." Garret nodded, looking back at the torches. He hadn't paid much attention to them before, but he paused now and observed them with me. They didn't seem to hold any secrets, so I walked over to him and we approached the statue of Entei.

We walked all around it, but didn't find much. The inscription at the bottom was intriguing- something about a disaster happening if Entei is disturbed. I assumed that meant the forth challenge. After we were done looking at that, Garret began searching the side of the cave that was closest to the hallway, and I looked on the farther side.

Most of the caves held nothing particularly interesting, but there was one that definitely caught my attention. Unlike all the other caves, which just had regular stone floors, this one had worn out tiles. At the far end of the room there was a small statue in the shape of a fang with a short inscription on it. It said that the challenge of fire lay ahead, and the challenge was to 'cool the rage that lays in the dragon's heart'. Hm, I remembered reading that rangers liked to test their abilities here. I guess they tested them by 'cooling the rage' aka capturing. It also mentioned at the end that saving was not allowed, 'for that in itself is a challenge'. That bit went right over my head. I couldn't fathom its meaning.

Regardless, I walked through the hallway (also tiled) and came to another stone room at the end (not tiled). Standing in the threshold to this new room, I could see scattered though it multiple little geyser-like openings. Though they didn't spit steam; instead, they would sporadically hurl out towers of fire. At the end of the room, on a platform, lay one massive charizard. The beast had been curled up when I walked in, and once it noticed me it raised its massive head and let out an ear-shattering roar. I was somewhat alarmed, but I held my ground. It observed me closely through triangular eyes, but seemed unwilling to get up and chase me off. I wondered vaguely if it was protecting something.

I didn't want to risk my luck and explore the room the fire dragon was presiding in, so after observing for a few more seconds, I decided there was nothing more to see and turned around to head back up the way I came. Though it wasn't definitive, I felt a vague plan start to form in my mind for when we needed Entei to appear.

The rest of the little caverns weren't nearly as interesting. They just served as homes to various wild pokemon. After half hour, the only interesting thing I had seen was the challenge of fire, and I went back to meet my siblings, having an idea as to what they had seen.

As expected, the three of them counted off the other three challenges; namely, the challenges of water, wind, and destruction.

"Just like I thought. I wonder…" I thought back to the plan I had started before.

"Er, what do you wonder?" Clyde asked.

"The calamity that happens if you complete the four challenges. Something tells me that calamity is an Entei that has worked himself into quite the tizz." There was a few seconds of silence as the three of them reflected on this. "Anything else interesting to report?"

"Nope."

"Not really."

"I captured a camerupt! But apart from that, no."

"Hm, a camerupt. Nice job, Tiff. I want to see the other three challenges for myself. You three head off to the boat." They nodded and walked off. I assumed the recently captured camerupt had already been sent off to the boat, since nothing followed Tiffany out.

Apart from the colour scheme, the only thing different about the other three challenges was that when you reached the end of the hall, the presiding dragon could not be seen. Instead, there were various obstacle courses that had to be completed. I assumed the dragons were at the end of these courses. I could have completed these tests, but I didn't particularly see the point in it. I didn't check out the other three challenges to complete them, I just wanted to see how different they were. Now that I knew, it was time to leave.

After sealing the entrance behind me and heading out of the relic, I heard the voice of an approaching grunt. And said grunt was apparently moving at a very high speed and cussing under his breath.

Curious, I stepped off the path and hid just out of view as a grunt and a politoad raced up the steps and into the relic. After a few seconds the ranger from before, Solana, went up the steps after him. She was limping slightly, but still moving at a fairly decent pace despite being chucked into a tree by a tyranitar. I was impressed.

Once they were both in the relic, I went halfway up the stairs to watch the show. It was somewhat dark in there, but from what I could see, Solana was attempting to capture the politoad. After a few minutes of the ranger drawing circles, and the politoad jumping out of said circles, the capture was finally completed.

_Not bad for a rookie, I guess_, I thought. The politoad promptly hopped out of the relic, presumably to go back to where it came from. Hm, interesting. It ran from the grunt, but it didn't stay with the ranger either. I wonder why that was.

The grunt ran down the stairs soon after the politoad, paling as he saw me standing there.

"S-sir! I'm so sorry! I failed…"

"Your mission wasn't to steal a politoad, it was to keep rangers away from us. Get back to the boat." Not looking entirely reassured, the grunt stumbled down the stairs to head back while I waited for Solana to come out. Might as well have a bit more fun before I go. I summoned Tyranitar to my side with a couple strums to wait with me.

She came out of the relic a few seconds later, and froze in her tracks when she saw me. She looked angry, and her plusle began sparking electricity in an attempt to look threatening, but they both held their ground. I smirked.

"Yeah. Not quite good enough to take down this bad boy yet, are you?" I taunted. Shame my siblings weren't there, they would have enjoyed the show. Oh well. I'd just tell them later.

"What are you doing here?" She tried to sound firm and threatening, I think, but her voice was too high pitched to give off either of those elements.

"Just brushing up on some history. The statue in there is lovely, isn't it? Gives off a real sense of time." She seemed confused, which, when mixed with anger, took on a suspicious facial expression. I assumed this meant she had no idea of the significance of the relic statue. Best not to give her an idea. Change of subject. "Although I am curious…I saw that when you captured my grunt's politoad, it ran off. I wonder why that is…"

"The justice in a ranger's heart resonates with a pokemon's soul during a capture and allows it to break free," she said stiffly. I laughed and took a step closer to her. She backed up, which made me laugh more.

"That has got to be the most preposterous thing I have ever heard! Justice in your heart? A pokemon's soul? Grow up. It's a technological malfunction, obviously." I took another few steps up the stairs as I was talking, and she continued to back away from me. I assumed it had something to do with the fact that tyranitar was still following. "But it is awfully cute that you think that's what it is."

"C-cute?" she seemed nervous now; we had reached the top of the stairs, and I was backing her into the relic now.

"Absolutely _precious_. That's what I love about rangers; they've got such…pure beliefs. Very noble. Very easily deceived, too. Oh, and very mistaken beliefs as well. But everything has its downfall, right?" I had backed her right up against the statue now, and walked closer to her as I spoke until I was right in front of her. I don't know why she looked so nervous; I was just complimenting rangers, that was all. Just honest, well meaning compliments. "You all have such honest faces." I reached a hand out to stroke said face (to help calm her down, of course) but plusle's tail began to glow, and this time it actually did follow through in attacking me. I pulled my hand away from the Iron Tail in time, but the partner pokemon looked ready to attack again. I smirked. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but my siblings are waiting for me. Good luck in your new career, Solana." I waived and turned to leave, with Tyranitar following behind me.

I looked back as I was walking down the stairs and in the little cave, I was pretty sure I was saw the ranger slump to the ground. Ha, that was quite a bit of fun. I certainly hope I see that little one more often.

The boat ride back was somewhat uneventfull, and certainly more crowded. Tyranitar and Camerupt took up a fair amount of space. I told the other three about my second meeting with Solana, and they found it pretty funny. Particularly Clyde- he got quite a kick out of bullying, I think.

Once we got back we told Father about what we found in the Jungle Relic. He seemed pleased with the information on Entei, and informed us that there were rumours of a Suicune living in Krokka Tunnel. Apparently, we would be heading over there tomorrow.

"This isn't going to be one of those things where you completely overload us with work until we start bleeding out of our eyes, is it?" Garret asked, a little fearfully. I knew he was thinking about the time, a couple years back, when Father had decided it would be best for the band if he took over and decided our rehearsal schedule. Rehearsals, with him, were three times a day, everyday, for two and half to three hours each time- which was a bit too much, even for me. These only ended when he and I started bashing heads over it; he put up a pretty good fight, but eventually, I won and was Leader of the Band again.

Father gave Garret a look. The Look. It was the look he usually reserved for me, when I went up against him. It was a look that said 'boy, you just crossed the line, but I'm going to pretend you didn't say/do that with the understanding that you _will not_ _do it again_'. Garret was quelled, and seemed to shrink a little within himself. I assumed that meant, yes; it would be one of those things where he completely overloads us with work until we start bleeding out of or eyes.

I sighed, a little exasperated. I knew that eventually we would have to bash heads again when he started getting too demanding, and that was just a pain in the ass. It would have to happen soon; but for now it was easier to just go along with it, since it wasn't too big of a deal. We would save the fight until I had more fuel to fight with.

So it was Suicune hunting for us tomorrow.

"To Krokka Tunnel we shall go," Garret said, a little apathetic.

* * *

"Clyde, for the last time, _get up!_" Garret, who had been walking back and forth between the bathroom and his room getting ready, had been shouting through Clyde's bedroom for the past hour as he walked by it. His shouts became more frequent and more annoyed until finally- with fifteen minutes left before we were due to head over to Krokka Tunnel- he was standing outside Clyde's door and shouting through it. Clyde's sleeping habits never ceased to bother Garret, who was a major morning person.

"For Mew's sake, Clyde if you don't get yourself up and start your strenuous- and impossible- routine of trying to make yourself look presentable we will be late. And you _know_ how upset that will make Father. And I don't mean upset as in sad, by the way." In reality, Clyde was probably almost ready now, if not already so. I'd have bet my guitar that he was just refusing to answer Garret to annoy him.

Sure enough, with five minutes left to go before we left, Clyde finally opened his door- fully dressed and wearing a cocky grin to boot- to an infuriated Garret.

"Hey now, big bro. You shouldn't shout like that too much; you'll lose that pretty little voice of yours."

"C'mon, let's get going," I said before Garret could offer a comeback and start another fight, which would make us later than anything. I started walking away and Tiffany- who, like me, had been leaning against the opposite wall watching the morning show- started following after. I heard Clyde fall in line beside me and, after an angry huff, Garret too began following.

The journey to Krokka Tunnel wasn't nearly as long as the one to the Jungle Relic, and as such we were there by late morning, having taken a taxi to the edge of town and walked the rest of the way. The weather, too, was much more pleasant than that of the Olive Jungle; the sun was out, but there was a slightly cool autumn breeze that made me thankful for my jacket.

Krokka Tunnel itself was rather dark and gloomy; something told me that we would not be finding any trace of Suicune here. We came upon the rock falls that the grunts had caused after about ten minutes of walking.

"Oh right. Those," Garret said, pretty much speaking the thoughts of my other two siblings and I. "How are we to get around this? Perhaps we should just wait for the rangers to clear it up for us."

"Nonsense. It's just going to take a little creativity to get over, that's all." I observed the looming rocks; too dangerous to climb over, and too tightly packed to squeeze between. "If we're going to replace the rangers we'll have to learn to deal with problems like rangers. But I think these could act as a useful deterrent to anyone who wants to come poking around, so let's find a pokemon to get us over the rocks, but not through them."

"…Seriously?" The look on my siblings' faces were less then enthused, and it was always Clyde who voiced reluctance first in the face of work. I laughed.

"Yes, Clyde. Seriously. Come on, it'll be useful. And besides, neither you nor Garret have a pokemon under your control yet." An idea popped into my head. "I wonder which one of you will get one first," I said, pulling on an overdone 'thinking face'. It was tacky, but it worked; both Clyde and Garret adapted competitive stances, and we began walking out of the cave and back to the forest to look for a pokemon to get us over the rock falls. Tiffany- who was walking with me behind Garret and Clyde- whispered in my ear as we walked.

"My money's on Garret." I smiled, thinking of how annoyed he was with Clyde that morning.

"Yeah, mine too."

The light from outside hit hard as we exited the dark cave, and it took us a minute for our eyes to adjust to the light. Once they did the four of us spanned out into the forest to search for pokemon.

Every once in a while I could hear Clyde or Garret start playing their instruments, but they would stop before they finished their song. My guess was they had started to capture a pokemon, but then decided that it wasn't good enough for the job at hand. There were loads of pokemon around- caterpie and all its evolutions, mudkip in the water, tailow, bellsprout, oddish; all the common pokemon that could be found almost anywhere, and were all not good for anything. I was starting to get frustrated, thinking that maybe it would be better to just wait for the rangers, when finally, _finally_, I heard Garret finish a song, meaning he had captured a pokemon.

The three of us went over to see what it was, and we saw Garret standing in front of a full grown, completely still scizor.

"It can only carry one at a time, but I think he'll do, hm?" He asked with fake humbleness in his voice.

"Perfect. Well done, little bro." He smirked a bit, having won the little competition between him and Clyde. "Alright. Back to the tunnel then."

We walked back to where the rock falls were with Garret's scizor in tow, and had it lift us one by one to the other side of the rocks. We continued on through the tunnel, a bored silence between us as the walk became monotonous. We passed an amusing ten minutes watching Clyde trying to bury a bellsprout's bottom half in the ground, despite it squirming around in his hand. After a few minutes of watching the bellsprout squirm around in the dirt trying to get free, however, that too got boring and we continued walking.

After a while the air started to get moist, and the ground was growing muddier. Soon we came upon a little river inside the cave, with pokemon frolicking at its banks and occasionally hopping inside the water at the sight of us. Well, at least we knew there was water, so I guess there was a chance that a suicune could have made its home here.

"This is probably the closest thing we'll find to suicune territory; let's follow the river downstream and see where it leads." The other three nodded and we started following the river. I had just bent over to check whether the water was salt water flowing in from the ocean or fresh water rising up from the ground (did suicune have a preference?) when we heard someone start to come in from one of the openings at the other side of the cave. I smiled when I saw who it was.

"Hey, Solana!" I greeted her like an old friend,as I stood up and let a smirk creep onto my face. She froze at the sight of us. "Just in time for another mini-concert."

* * *

**A/N Want to know something funny? I honestly and truly thought I had this chapter up a week ago. I was wondering why I wasn't getting any more reviews…and then I realized that, oh, it says here that there are only three chapters up…:s. So this has been sitting on my computer for a week completely done, and unposted. Sorry…**

**But, oh well. It's here now. And isn't this story just so much more fun now that we've gotten the set up out of the way? I like it more, anyway.**

**Review? I think so.**


	5. Been a Son

We played our song, and just for the amusement of the ranger. Yet, for some reason, she didn't seem pleased. And we did so well that time too.

"Damn, that was good boys- and Tiff. Well done."

"I'm not letting you get away this time! What are you doing here, what do you want?" Hoo-boy. She was pissed. "And what the hell was with burying that bellsprout! What did it do to you?" Clyde laughed, but apart from that we ignored the last question.

"What are we doing here? Visiting you of course. We want to keep up with our buddy from Summerland. So what are you up to?" I asked. Her response didn't exactly answer my question.

"Plusle, use Thundershock!"

"Block it, Scizor," Garret said, strumming on his guitar. In a quick flash Scizor flew in front of us and easily blocked the weak electric attack by raising his iron hard claw.

"So…you're training?" Tiffany guessed, her voice dripping with innocence. "I would think you'd be on duty right now."

"That's none of your business," she snarled, her eyes flicking across us.

"Plah-plah!" Hey, her Plusle looked somewhat mad too. That's adorable.

"Oh this is fun. A riddle, I think. Billy, you're the best at riddles; why do you think she's here?" Garret asked, in full taunt mode.

"Hm, let me think…" Oh, this _was_ fun. This ranger just took our taunts so seriously. Maybe I should throw her a bone and say something realistic. "Well, there was a bit of a roadblock getting here…" I said, referring to the rocks we had flown over before. "Were you sent to clear them?"

"…"

No answer…huh.

"Clearing…rocks," Garret said slowly, a smile spreading over his face. "What an exciting life you lead. It seems like so much _fun_ being a ranger."

"And here I am thinking you were looking for legendary pokemon like us. Or that you were sent to maybe say a friendly hello to us." Clyde laughed harshly. "Stupid me. I guess that's a job that only our Super Stylers can handle."

"…Our prototype Super Stylers…" Tiffany mumbled. I was a bit disappointed in her; there was no reason to kill the moment like that.

"Nonetheless, legendary pokemon are far beyond rangers," Garret said. They seemed to be having quite a good time; I knew they would enjoy associating with this little ranger. "I suppose they're more suited for jobs like…chasing toads through jungles. Or smashing rocks in caves. You know, little bro. Jobs that give you a real sense of _purpose_." We all laughed at that. Purposeful jobs indeed.

"Zing! Truer words were never spoken, big bro!" Clyde laughed. It was nice to see my siblings come together over this little game.

"Well now, this has been fun. And we would love to stay and chat- really, we would- but we have a job to do. Ciao!" We started to continue our way along the river when Solana decided to try a new tactic in stopping us.

"We're not done yet; Bellsprout, use Vine Whip!" No sooner had the bellsprout (no doubt the one that amused us before) began stretching its vines out then Garret had started playing again, and Scizor leapt into action.

Bellsprout froze, looking back to Solana for instruction. And it had paused for good reason; Scizor had Plusle in one of its vices, squeezing it threateningly. Those vices were sharp too; I could see little droplets of blood forming at the points where Scizor's vice met Plusle's skin. The little rodent was squirming around and squeaking something, obviously scared and in pain.

_I think we're learning how to play this game pretty fast_, I thought, watching Solana and her pokemon freeze.

"Plusle! You dirty scum, let her go!" As if. It was easy to see her fear; we definitely had the upper hand.

"Hm, I think not. You know, when you want someone to do something for you, it's best not to insult them first. In fact, how about you pull Bellsprout back and try for a compliment?"

"…Bellsprout, come back." Bellsprout retracted its vines and returned to Solana's side. A slight pause, and then…

"Well, good. That's the first part of my request. What about the second?" I wasn't letting her get away that easy.

"The second part?"

"Yes, sweetie. The second part. Praise us. Tell us what you like about us." The look on her face when she realized what I was saying was absolutely priceless. A combination of shock, anger, and confusion.

"You god damn twisted assholes! You pieces of shit better-"

"Now, now," Garret interrupted. "There's no need to swear. And that's not much of a compliment. If that's how you praise people, you must not have many friends."

"Plaaah!" I don't know whether Plusle was crying out in pain, or whether it was a response to what Garret said, but either way, it had a nice effect. Solana looked terrified at the sound- I think I could actually see her body shaking. I waited, knowing she would comply.

"You play good music." She practically spat the words at us, and the four of us all clapped in response.

"Thanks so much!" Tiffany chirped.

"That means a lot to us, ranger." That was Clyde. I just laughed.

"Plah plah!"

"Plusle!"

"Garret, let the little rat go now. Play time is over." Garret smiled and strummed on his guitar in response.

"Can do. Thanks for the praise, ranger!" Plusle was dropped to the ground by Scizor, and Solana ran over to her little partner to see if she was okay. Still smiling, the four of us left, this time uninterrupted.

Well, the river led us on for about fifteen more minutes. We were snickering about what had just happened for the first ten, and then got bored with that. At the end of the river was a massive lake, right inside the cave. Which was pretty cool, I'll have to admit. The water was really unearthly blue and I could see stalagmites rise up underneath the perfectly clear water to mirror the stalactites that hang from the ceiling. It was very beautiful and clean; definitely suicune territory. At least, I thought it could be.

"That's quite lovely, isn't it?" I said, looking across the lake- there wasn't very much room between where the lake ended and where the cave wall began, but there was still enough room to walk single file. "Well, let's split up again. Garret and I will go around to the right; Clyde, you and Tiff go around to the left. We'll meet up at the end. Examine the water and the rock wall, okay? Good. Let's go."

So we walked. The lake was, again, very pretty, but as far as I could see on our little march it held no sign of suicune other than being clean water. Clyde and Tiffany reported the same when we met them at the other side.

"Though I think I might have seen a gyarados," Tiffany said.

"Which would be useful if we had a way to keep it with us. But we don't, so we might as well head out." Tiffany, Garret and Clyde nodded, looking unimpressed that their day's travelling had yielded nothing new.

Tiffany's POV

The walk back was frustrating, and my feet were starting to get sore in my boots. The road was dirty and muddy, we couldn't find any clues whatsoever to Suicune's whereabouts; needless to say, I was not a happy girl. Then, to top it all off, Billy made an announcement.

"I don't want to head back to Father with absolutely nothing to say; let's split up again and at least check out the rest of the cave. Clyde, you go that way," he pointed at one of three branching paths, "Garret, you take the right path. I'll go forward and Tiff, you go back and take that other route we saw back there, okay?"

_No! Not okay, Billy! I'm tired, my feet hurt, I'm hungry, I want to go home-_

"Yeah, okay. Where will we meet?"

"At the exit, in ten minutes." That was his answer, and then he left. Seriously? Ten minutes? I had to go backwards, and he expected me to be able to thoroughly check the area _and_ make it back out in time? I was going to be late, and that would make Billy mad, but I wasn't about to go up against him. I wasn't stupid enough for that. So I turned around and headed back while the boys all went forward. This was so not fair.

I backtracked, took an adjoining path to look someplace new, and after seven minutes I decided to turn around and head out. Only problem was, I had taken quite a few branching paths to try and find said new thing. Now, I had no idea what way 'out' was.

Great, so now I was hungry, in pain, exhausted, and lost. Just wonderful.

I went back as far as I could remember, and then came to a fork in the path without knowing which way to go.

_Left or right? Ummm, eenie meenie miny..._

"Right, then." I took the right path, thinking that there was at least a fifty percent chance that I would take the correct route.

I wound through the cave, still completely lost. After a few minutes I saw I statue up ahead. What the hell was that? Oh...it was a statue of a dugtrio. Definitely didn't see that on the way in...

_Oh for goodness sake! I've been lost for fifteen minutes now. Aren't my brothers even trying to find me?_

…_Maybe they just went home._

Oh? Someone was coming...a very fun someone. Time to rant to a ranger!

"Ugh, this is ridiculous! I'm lost, I'm hungry, and it's been fifteen long minutes of nothing but _rocks_." Ranger Solana halted in her tracks, alarmed. I had started playing my violin and Camerupt came running; I could see Solana was confused, but she could also sense she was about to be attacked. She was scrambling to have a magnemite recharge her styler, checking her friend pokemon to see if they were ready...in other words, she was rushing to get ready. "And I'm pretty sure my brothers have left without me. It's a good thing you're here to cheer me up! Go, Camerupt! Burn her black!"

Camerupt- sweet obedient thing that it was- promptly fired a flamethrower at the girl. She leapt out of the way in time, and then started trying to draw circles around it.

"Oh no you don't." I started playing my frustration into my violin; it sounded very angry. Billy would have been proud, I think. Camerupt began attacking Solana in earnest now, making the ranger work to avoid the fire that was erupting from all over the pokemon's body. My violin in tune with my anger, I started singing the first song that came to mind.

"_She should have stayed away from friends_

_She should have had more time to spend_

_She should have died when she was born_

_She should have worn the crown of thorns_"

It was a song I had been writing on my own recently. I probably wouldn't show it to my brothers, but it was a good way to let out frustration. And besides that, we pretty much never played songs that I wrote. Oh Garret, you wrote a song? Excellent, good job, word boy. Clyde, you got off your lazy ass and did something for once? Oh, hallelujah, praise Arceus. It's genius. Tiffany, what's that? A song. Hmmm, not quite up to snuff. But don't bother trying again. Leave that to the boys, okay?

I was the youngest of four. I was the only girl in a family of five. Sure, Daddy always gave me all the little things that I wanted, but I always suspected that he actually wanted four boys. Maybe showering me in gifts was his way of giving affection to a child that he didn't want. All I wanted was a little respect. Was that really too much? According to Billy, it was. And we were all too god damn scared to go against what Billy said. Even Daddy always gave in to him.

I was playing furiously, and Camerupt was responding flawlessly, yet, somehow, the little rookie ranger was still managing to draw a fair amount of consecutive circles. She'd pull the disc back when it was about to be hit, but it was unnerving how good she was doing.

She tried going behind Camerupt and capturing it from the back, but I had a solution to that. A quick spike in the pitch, slurred up then down, and Camerupt pivoted impossibly on his back left leg, facing Solana and blasting fire at her. She dodged to the side, but not before being brushed on the arm by Camerupt's fire.

"Ha! Time to step up the heat!" I played more furiously then before, advancing to the chorus and really letting the ranger have it.

"_She should have been a son_

_She should have been a son_

_She should have been a son_

_She should have been a son"_

I wondered vaguely what I would do if (when) I managed to break her styler. Take her back to base as some sort of hostage? Laugh in her face and leave? Steal her styler?

…Set her on fire?

No…that was a little drastic. Oh well, I'd decide what to do when I got there. Though getting there seemed to be more of an issue then before. The girl could draw some fancy little circles.

Loop, loop, loop, and a charge forward that forced Solana to lift the disc. Loop, loop, loop, loop, loop, hit with a fire ball. I could hear her styler making panicky sounding noises. Almost there…

"_She should have stood out in a crowd_

_She should have made her mother proud_

_She should have fallen on her stance_

_She should have had another chance_"

Loop, loop, lift. Argh, this was getting frustrating. Just put you're disc back down so I can smash-

"Kirlia, psychic pokeassist!"

_Well shit._

Camerupt was hovering uselessly in the air, held up by the invisible strings of Kirlia's psychic. I tried getting him to blast Solana from up in the air, but he didn't seem to understand. Stupid thing! I knew he wouldn't stay up there forever, but what if it was long enough to-

"Capture complete! Ha!" I couldn't believe it. I had been beaten by some rookie ranger? Not okay, not okay…

_She should have been a son_

_She should have been a son_

_She should have been a son_

_She should have been a son_

_Argh…now it's running through my head_, I thought, unable to stop thinking about the song I had been playing so furiously just moments before. _Don't lose your cool…it will embarrass Billy…_

"Oh, hey. You're not too shabby, huh?" An idea occurred to me. "Hey, how about you join us! Since you love our music so much and all, and since you're decent with a styler."

"Not a chance! And besides-" she gave me the first smile I had ever seen on her- "why would I join under you when I'm obviously better than you?"

_Why, you little bi-_

"Solana!" A voice rang from far off.

"Leader?"

"Camu!"

"Shit!" I had seen pictures of the Ringtown leader, and he was pretty damn burly. Time for me to scram. This was so humiliating.

"Well, I guess you're right. You beat me the first time, and I doubt I'll get lucky the second time. Tah-tah!" I ran past little ranger Solana and chased after my camerupt who was trying to make a getaway. I pushed Solana on my way by- to vent a bit- and caught up with Camerupt just outside the cave. The thing wasn't very fast. I looked behind me to make sure neither ranger nor base leader had followed- they hadn't- and started recapturing camerupt.

"You're not getting away that easy bud," I hissed under my breath, now fully angry.

"Tiff? What are you doing?" I heard big bro Clyde call out to me. I looked up to see the three of them standing not too far away. What were they doing at the other exit?

_She should have stayed away from friends_

_She should have had more time to spend_

"Recapturing Camerupt," I said, feeling shame well up in anticipation for when they heard why I had to recapture the thing.

"Did you lose control of it?" Billy asked, tone hinted mostly with disapproval, but at least I could hear some concern.

"No, that Solana girl… managed to capture it."

"You let a rookie ranger capture your camerupt?"

_She should have died when she was born_

_She should have worn the crown of thorns_

"She's better than she seems, okay?" Embarrassing, humiliating, but I could feel little tears well up at the corner of my eyes. Billy looked a little peeved, Garret seemed concerned, and Clyde…was wearing that classic 'slack-jawed stupid' face that was so totally his signature. I guess he was in slight disbelief.

"Well, at least we found you, safe and sound. And we don't have to tell Father that Solana captured Camerupt, since you've got him back now." Garret tried to comfort as I walked over, a freshly captured camerupt lingering behind me.

"Thanks Garret," I mumbled.

"Don't worry little sis! I'll make sure that ranger pays for humiliating you." Oh, good ol' Clyde. He always liked protecting me. I knew he would make good on that promise, too. "You just leave it up to big bro Clyde."

_She should have been a son._

**A/N Did you like? I took a bit of artistic license there, I hope it worked out! And this was a super fast update since my last chapter was written…like a week ago. Again, sorry about that.**

**And oh, my. Look at the length of this bad boy. Hope that's alright…**

**Review! Pleaseeeee *cries***

**Ohhh…now I'm a crybaby like Tiffany. Aw, that was mean. Poor Tiffany.**


	6. Trigger Happy Jack

**Why yes, we are back to Billy's point of view. It will mostly be from his perspective. Though there will be a few Garret/Clyde/ maybe another Tiffany-centric chapters, told by their POV. Oh, and in response to something that cropped up in a review, there IS NOT and NEVER WILL BE any romance between Solana and Billy. **

So Solana had managed to capture Tiffany's camerupt…it was a bit annoying that Tiffany let Solana think she was above us, but not really all that surprising. Tiffany was weak willed; she never wrote any of her own songs, or participated in idea bouncing sessions. She just always relied on us. It didn't surprise me that she lost in the least.

But of course, we get back, and what's the first thing Father says?

"You didn't find any information on Suicune? I'm disappointed in you four." Naturally he's looking directly at me as he says this. "Tomorrow you will be going to Lyra Forest to check for Raikou. Understood?"

Oh no. Not a chance. We had already missed _two days_ worth of rehearsal for these damn 'missions'. I, no, we were not missing another full day to search for something that _probably wasn't there_. I had hoped to put this off a bit but, hell, I was pissed now. Who did he think he was?

"I understand what you want just fine," I said through clenched teeth, and I could practically feel everyone else in the family brace for a battle. "What I don't understand, is how you actually believe we are going to go prance around _wasting time_ for the third damn day in a row."

I think Garret might have muttered 'ding-ding' under his breath, but I'm not sure.

"I expect you to complete these searches because you committed yourself to this team when you agreed to help lead it," my father rumbled.

"I agreed to help lead it. I did _not_ agree to completely put the band aside for it." We were both building up to a yell now, and the couple of grunts that had been in the room at the time promptly fled. And I was willing to bet that my siblings wished they could have done the same.

"I'm not asking you to put your precious little band aside, boy. You can practice whenever you please. I'm asking you-"

"Don't feed me that tauros shit." I interrupted, yelling now. "You and I both know that we can't practice into the dead of night when we'll have to wake up early and chase after legendary cats for Arceus's sake!"

"If you had stuck to my rehearsal times you wouldn't have that kind of problem," he yelled back. "And eight in the morning is not getting up early, Billy."

"Your rehearsal times were ridiculous! We need time to eat and sleep damn it."

"You had time to eat and sleep. And don't you swear at me boy. I am through with you thinking that whatever you say goes. As much as it may bother you, I'm still the man of the house, and my final word is _the_ final word."

"Ha! If you were a real man than Hastings would have seen you worthy of being told that he had finished that project you'd been working on for weeks, no? Actually, if you were a real man you would have finished before him."

Oh, I could see a vein popping out at his temple now. Which was weird, because I was aiming to hit a nerve, not a vein.

"Child, your sass has gone far enough. I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago. I'm _grounding_ you."

"Ohh, I'm shaking. Not allowed to leave home, huh? Golly, that sounds just awful."

"That's not what your grounding is," he said through clenched teeth, trying to bring his voice down to normal volume again. "Billy, _I am taking your guitar away_."

My…my...what? Huh? He…he-

"_You can't fucking do that_!" I think I might have broken the sound barrier with that shout. Hey, musicians have good lungs. "You can't take my damn guitar away!"

"I have to boy. It seems to be the only thing that will get through to you."

"No," I snarled. "I mean you _can't_ take my guitar away. If you think I'm going to hand it over than you are smoking something fierce. And frankly, I'd like to see you try and take it by force." I grabbed my guitar from where it was hanging across my back and slung it across me. Seriously, let's see him try and take it.

There was a few seconds where we stared each other straight in the eye. It was Father that broke the silence.

"I have a schedule boy. I can't very well send the grunts by themselves to do this. What do you expect me to do, go myself?"

Huh. An interesting choice of response.

"Hey, that's been an option from the start. Sounds good to me." And with that I spun around, away from my father's stunned look, and left to go to bed. After a moment's hesitation, my siblings followed after me. We didn't talk; instead we just all went to our respective rooms.

Just to piss of Father some more, I stayed up until around two in the morning playing my guitar as loudly as possible. No one in this house was getting any sleep until I decided my point had been good and made. Also, it was a very good way to de-stress. I stopped only when I was too exhausted to keep up my furious playing, and I could practically hear my family sigh in unison from their respective rooms then.

When I got up the next morning (at eleven o'clock) Father, apparently, had left.

"One of the grunts said he left early this morning," Garret told me; he and Tiffany were the early risers. "I guess he is going to Lyra forest himself then."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. Was the old man trying to prove something to me? If he was, I couldn't quite see what. I guess it was just too sophisticated for my poor brain to understand.

Tiffany smiled (albeit forcefully) and said she was going to 'do her hair,' whatever that meant. I rarely saw much of a change in her hair style, it was almost always down. Something told me she was too proud of her dead straight, layered hair to put it up.

"Get Clyde up while you're at it," I told her as she left. Just Garret and I were in the kitchen now. I started making my breakfast, while Garret sat and read the newspaper. In silence. Huh.

Things were always a little weird after a fight with Daddy dearest. Between everyone really. But at least I had the guts to actually fight for what we needed. Because that was really the only way to get Father to relent once he's made a decision.

And so breakfast was an awkward affair. I ate, Garret read, and Clyde came stumbling in a few minutes later. He may be a burly, lazy oaf, but he at least neutralized the awkwardness. He lumbered around the kitchen, yawning in that loud roaring way of his and banged around with the kitchen supplies, making an excessive amount of noise. After a few minutes of this Garret's annoyance level with Clyde (which is always up a little bit) seemed to peak and he left the room. From the looks of it, he was doing it as quietly as possible, perhaps to prove a point. Not that Clyde noticed; he was busy dealing with the toast that had just popped out of the toaster.

"Nicely done, bro." I complimented him, thankful for the bit of noise. Clyde, still drowsy from just waking up, apparently did not know what I was talking about.

"...Yes, I suppose it is nice toast, huh?" He said, examining his two perfectly golden slices of toast.

Not quite what I meant but...yeah, that was good looking toast.

My breakfast finished, I got up to leave. On the way out, I snagged one of those pieces of toast, which Clyde had just finished buttering. He let out an indignant shout, but I just smiled and kept going, munching on the crispy bread.

A couple hours later, we were all in the room we had staked out as our rehearsal zone. It was as far away from the lab as you could get, so we didn't disturb the scientists. It was however, at the part of the building closest to the residential houses that lay a little ways away from the Dusk factory. Oh well, we hadn't got any noise complaints yet.

I had written a new song by then, and I wanted to work on that. Unfortunately, Garret was still unusually silent and Clyde was not in one of his productive moods. Rehearsal was long and excruciatingly difficult; eventually I just gave up on my new song and we defaulted back to our cute little intro that we played to Solana on the two times we had encountered her to ensure that we stay in tune. After a couple hours, Clyde started his complaining.

"...Hey Billy?"

"What, Clyde?" I knew what was coming, so well, in fact, that I said Clyde's next words along with him in my head.

"We've been at this for a while...can we pause for lunch now?"

Lunch. It was always about lunch. Or supper. Or a snack. Or just food in general. But it was nearly two thirty by this point, and I was hungry too.

"Sure, fine. Let's head in then." Garret and I slung our guitars across our backs, Tiffany replaced her violin in its case, and Clyde put his bongo drum on the little carrier thing he had on his back. Garret had told him that carrying it like that had made him look like the hunchback of Notre Dom.

"Hey, that hunchback ended up with a princess yo," he replied as we walked back towards the kitchen.

"No, Clyde, he actually didn't. He fell in love with a Gypsy."

"How do you know that, Garret?" Tiffany asked, curious.

"It's a Disney movie, we've all seen it. Everyone knows that."

"No we don't big bro!" Clyde yelled, a little too enthusiastic about the situation.

"You know," I said mildly, breaking into the conversation before Garret could snap back, "One of these days we're going to drive gentlemanly Garret so far over the edge that he'll just go crazy and kill us all. I'm willing to bet Clyde will be the first one to be stabbed in his sleep."

"Billy, please. It's Clyde. I wouldn't just stab him," Garret said easily. Finally, he speaks.

"Oh? What would you do?"

"Clyde's caused me a lot of grief, so something a little more painful."

"Pray tell."

Garret seemed to ponder exactly how he would murder his brother for a moment. "You know that hair straightener Tiff has?"

"The one she uses to straighten her already straight hair?"

"Exactly. Well, we need to make sure Clyde doesn't…spread his seed around. For starters."

I laughed pretty hard at that, though Clyde seemed to pale slightly. "I'd bash your head in before you had the chance bro." He told him. Garret simply smiled.

"Which is why I'd have Scizor hold you down. You might not want to struggle then- those clamps are sharp." I laughed some more at that, and Tiffany wrinkled her noise.

"You guys are sick. Garret, you know if you did that you'd have to buy me a new straightener."

"Who said you'd survive the night? Remember, I have supposedly gone crazy- you could be right after Clyde." Tiffany gasped- an overly dramatic, obviously fake gasp- and I couldn't help but feel relieved that the awkwardness had passed. I would have never admitted it to anyone, least of all Garret, but it made me uneasy when my siblings weren't all on good terms. As proven by that day's rehearsal, fighting is not conducive to good music. Unless you're writing a song to vent.

The rest of the day was fairly relaxing and stress-free. We chatted, decided to try another rehearsal in the evening, watched Garret and Clyde bicker (though, thankfully not as much as usual) and wondered what was taking Dad so long to get home. Lyra forest wasn't that far away.

Finally, at around seven when we were all sitting on the couches eating our Kraft Dinner supper, a very disgruntled old man lumbered through the door.

"Hey _Dad_! How'd it go?" I asked in an overly-cheerful voice. He shot me a look that clearly stated he was still angry with me, and then started on his rant.

"Horribly. We didn't find anything, the grunts got scared off by a swarm of beedrill, and left me lost in the woods."

"Oh yeah?" I could feel a smirk roll onto my face, though I did my best to keep my expression neutral. "Tell me more."

He scowled, but obviously still needed to rant. "I had to call the Ranger Union to come and find me. And, as if I wasn't already frustrated enough, they sent a child after me. A mere _child_."

Now it was getting difficult to keep the snicker in my throat from spewing out my mouth. "Oh," I said, trying to sound sympathetic, though it came out very fake. "And what were they like?"

"You should already know his profile. It was that Ringtown boy named Lunick. And he would not stop _pestering_ me." _Keep that laugh in Billy_, I told myself. Father was on a rant now, oblivious to my internal struggle. "And that little yellow rat! It kept bouncing around, getting under my feet and climbing all over me." _Don't laugh…_ "I was tormented by a crass murkrow." _Keep it down, don't laugh, _I thought, barely containing myself. "And I bumped into some fat ranger when we finally found the exit." That was it. Hearing my father say 'bumped into some fat ranger' sent me over the edge, and I could help but laugh at his misfortune. I could see my siblings thought that was a little funny too, but they kept their amusement hidden much better than I did. After a moment I got a hold of myself, and looked up to see a _very_ grumpy father staring at me.

I coughed a bit into my hand to try and cut off the tail end of my laughter. "Sounds like you had a pretty bad day."

"You find that funny boy?"

Obviously. "What? That? No, of course not. I was laughing at…a little joke. From earlier. Had to do with Tiff's hair straightener." Oh, Daddy was not pleased.

"Listen here, Billy-"

"Sorry to hear you've had such a bad day." I interrupted happily, lurching out of my chair and heading towards the door. "But we were planning on a second rehearsal, so we'll leave you to relax on your own. C'mon guys." As we were leaving, I shouted over my shoulder, "oh, and you don't mind doing the dishes right?" I could practically hear my father's frustrated growl, and I snickered almost all the way out.

"Crass murkrow indeed," Garret muttered under his breath. At that moment I realized where Garret must have learned his extensive vocabulary from. Father was always full of colourful words.

Rehearsal went better the second time around, though it was still not quite up to what I wanted. Clyde was still lazy, and Tiffany was still unfocused. I was going to have to do something about those two- I was sure Clyde had some sort of button that could stimulate his productive mood. I just had to find it.

We went in at around eleven (Clyde again complaining of hunger) and flipped on the news while having some snacks. I was hoping for a bit more coverage for the Go Rock Squad, and eventual I got my wish. Though it wasn't headline news (some erupting volcano over in Kanto took precedence, apparently), I still got to hear my band's name mentioned for the first time on television. There had been no actual footage of us either time we were out in the open- obviously- but the report did mention that the rangers had found four high ranking members of the Go Rock Squad, who all appeared to be related and formed a band called the Go Rock Quads. Our names were never mentioned- which seemed unfair, since we had even introduced ourselves to little Solana- but still, it was a start. I went to bed happy after that.

**A/N Psshh, yeah, I know. Lame sauce update. And short…sorry. But still…updating will be more regular again. I pinky promise.**

**I didn't make the connection to Lunick's name being related to lunar, as in the moon, until I found out the default name for the female was Solana. Before that, I thought the game was going for a sort of 'Lunick the Lunatic' thing. But Lunick was far too lazy for that…so lunar makes more sense.**

**Isn't rambling grand? Almost as grand as reviewing.**


	7. The Righteous & the Wicked

**What the devil happened to regular updates? I'm so sorry, Billy! Please don't sic your rampaging Tyranitar on me!**

* * *

There's one thing you must know about Father, if you haven't already guessed it. He can _really_ hold a grudge. As in, for years if the offense is severe enough. As such, refusing to do as I was told, keeping the entire place awake until the wee hours of the morning, and the following taunting of his bad mood earned me a couple of weeks of the silent treatment. I think he thought he was making me miserable with the lack of communication and cold looks I was receiving from him. In actuality, I thought it was absolutely hilarious how immature he was being. Honestly, a full grown man giving his son the cold shoulder. Tiffany grew out of that phase when she was like, ten. And Tiffany isn't exactly what I would call mature.

Either way, I got a lovely, completely work-free couple of weeks to rehearse with the band and put the finishing touches a few songs. Garret was noticeably improving in skill with that guitar of his, and I was beginning to get really impressed. Though I would never admit it out loud, he was probably best with his instrument out of all of us, assuming Clyde wasn't having a productive day. Which he usually wasn't.

After a couple of weeks, apparently my 'punishment' was over. Father called us all together, and told us we had a rather important mission for us.

"I have finished the Super Styler," he told us arrogantly. He waited for praise, and it took us a beat too long to realize what he wanted.

"Good for you, Dad," Garret said, the first to catch on.

"Yeah, that's awesome," Clyde said.

"Yay for you!" That was Tiffany. These praises were becoming more and more flamboyant. Might as well keep the trend going…

"OMG, that's, like, totally marv Daddy," I said in my best stereotypical gay voice. Tiffany stuck her tongue out at me, Clyde and Garret laughed a bit, and Father ignored me.

"Thank you. Now, I need a suitable test subject to make sure that all the various functions are in working order. It can't be a common pokemon- they're too easy to capture. There are select few regular pokemon that would work for this purpose, but any legendary pokemon will be sufficient. You four will find me a test subject."

"Can do, Dad," I said, thinking back to the entei statue and the four challenges. "I got a plan all worked out already." I gave him an easy smile, and he nodded back with his usual stern expression. I motioned to my siblings to follow me as I left the room, heading towards the rec room.

There were a few grunts in there when we arrived, but I told them to leave, so they did. My siblings all took seats around the room and looked up at me expectantly. I, still standing, smirked a bit.

"Alright you three," I said. "We need a plan."

One beat of silence…then two…

"You said you already had a plan though." Garret finally pointed out, breaking the silence.

"I lied."

"Oh."

"So what are we going to do?" Tiffany asked. Clyde simply sat and looked perplexed.

"Well, we're obviously going to focus on reawakening Entei." I began. I may not have had a plan totally worked out, but there were some glaringly obvious points that could be worked with. Well, glaringly obvious to me.

"Why Entei?" Clyde asked.

"Maybe because Entei is the only legendary that we've found any solid clues about? Does that make sense to you, little bro?" Garret asked, his voice a little too innocent.

"Thank you Garret," I said sharply before we could get distracted with a Garret vs. Clyde battle. "Now, I think this is exceedingly simple. People have been warned to never, ever complete the fourth challenge, because of some calamity or another. There's a great big statue of an angry looking entei in that cave. Which means the calamity is probably an angry entei."

"Or a volcanic eruption." Garret pointed out, seeming to think my words over.

"Angry entei seems more likely to me," I said.

"But what if it is a volcano? Won't we be killed?" Tiffany asked, apparently scared.

"Tiff, I promise you that a volcano isn't going to erupt over your head."

"Wait, just to make sure everyone is caught up," Garret threw a meaningful look at Clyde, "Billy, you're proposing that we go and complete the four challenges to reawaken Entei?"

"Yup, that would be the plan."

"It has a few flaws…" Garret pointed out, but he didn't seem to be challenging me, so I let it slide.

"Wait, the legend says not to do the fourth challenge." Clyde pointed out, joining the conversation. "So does that mean that we can just skip right to the fourth, or do we actually have to do _all_ of the challenges?"

"Hmmm, that's a good question." I thought about it for a second. "Garret, can you remember anything that referenced whether all the challenges had to be completed?"

"Ummm…" Garret thought about it, looking uncomfortable. "Well, I don't really remember anything. But that was umquhile, so my memory may not be sufficient."

"What does that mean?" Tiffany asked, curious.

"What? Sufficient?"

"No, I know what _that_ means. What does umquhile mean?"

"Er, some time ago."

"You know, big bro, you know a lot of useless stuff." Clyde commented.

"First of all, it's not useless. And second of all, there's a word for that too. But it's hard to pronounce."

"Say it!" Tiffany demanded.

"I'm not sure if I'll-"

"Try!"

"Okay…it's something like, floccin…aucin…ihilip…ili…fication," Garret said, sounding out the word very carefully.

"Where on earth did you learn-"

"Focus, guys!" I snapped, annoyed at how easily distracted the three of them were. "I think we should just skip to the fourth challenge, to save time. If we find we need to do all of them, we can always backtrack. Okay?" They had jumped when I snapped at them, and readily agreed to this proposal. "Good. We'll leave tomorrow."

We told Father of our plan, and he seemed to approve. It was agreed that he would wait by the statue until we completed the fourth challenge, since we assumed the entei would be appearing, if not from the statue itself, then at least near the centre of the cave. We would take along some grunts as well, to distract any rangers that might notice something funny going on in the cave.

* * *

By one o'clock the next morning, our happy little family could be seen making our way through Olive Jungle. I had had the foresight to wear more appropriate clothes, and had on my usual black pants (I wouldn't be seen dead in shorts of any kind) and a dark red t-shirt. Garret and Clyde were in similar outfits, and Tiffany had one of her many dresses on.

I hated the walk there. Not only was it still too hot to be allowed, but we had to lug Father around with us, as well as the twenty or so not-completely-idiotic grunts that we decided to take with us. This was going to be one of the events that decided which grunts would get a higher ranking, so we had to be watching them carefully. However, since no one was talking, it was pretty hard to judge skill level. I think Garret was keeping track of how many times each of them tripped. It was better than nothing, I supposed.

It wasn't like the four of us couldn't talk to the grunts. We had on other missions, and it had been comfortable enough. Well, for us anyway. Every once in a while we would take to bullying them a bit, to remind them of our rank and for entertainment. The only reason we weren't talking now was because Father Kill Joy was here. Because really, who wanted to talk with some cranky old man glaring at you and judging your every word? The only positive emotion he seemed to feel was when he watched Clyde capture a slacking, since it was the first time he had ever seen our instrument stylers at work. He gave a curt nod of approval and went back to the irritated facial expression. I think the heat was making him crankier than usual.

When we finally, _finally_, reached the jungle relic, it was a simple thing to open the passageway and relocate the entei statue. We told all but two of the grunts (the two who had tripped the least, according to Garret) to disperse farther into the cave, which they did. It was with a uniform sigh of relief that my siblings, the two grunts and I headed off for the fourth challenge.

We ditched the two graceful grunts at the door, ordering them to tell whatever lie worked to keep rangers away.

"Fi-na-lly!" Tiffany said, enunciating each syllable. "That was just _awful_."

"I don't disagree with you there," I said. "Arceus, Father really has no idea how to be sociable. I bet Hastings was just avoiding him when he neglected to tell Father about the stupid styler. Honestly, who would actually want to talk to him?"

"No kidding." Clyde grunted. "Hey…how much do you think that plate thingy there is worth?" He asked suddenly, noticing the warning on the fang statue.

"Well, it's probably pretty old," Garret said, walking up to it. "Old things are usually worth a fair amount of money."

Clyde grinned. "Cool. I say we snag it and sell it." He looked at me for confirmation, and I just shrugged. Why not?

"So how are you going to get it off?" Garret asked. "Looks like it's on here pretty tight."

"Slaking can probably tear it off." Clyde lumbered over to it, and his freshly caught slaking followed in the same manner. "Slaking, rip the plate out." He commanded, doing a little _rat-a-tat-tat_ thing on his drum.

Slaking grunted and went to grab the plate with his massive hand. We watched him give a mighty wrench…and have most of the plate crumble in his hands. He offered the crumbled remains to Clyde, who took a piece and threw it at the ape's head.

"No, you moron! You were supposed to leave it intact!" Slaking looked uncomprehendingly at Clyde, and let out a long, slow yawn. Garret snorted a short laugh from behind him.

"Hey now, calm down there little bro. There are still three other plates, and I'm sure my scizor can cut them out perfectly," he said a little arrogantly. Scizor quickly snapped his claws, as if to prove Garret's words. Clyde simply glared at him, apparently still fuming.

"Leave it, Clyde," I said. "We're on a schedule, so let's go capture us a charizard, hm?" Garret nodded, and we continued to walk towards the challenge of fire. Except for Tiffany, who chose instead to ride towards the challenge of fire on Camerupt's back.

When we got to the threshold to the Lair of the Fire Dragon, as I had decided to call it, I saw that the charizard was in the exact same place as where I had left it. In almost the exact same position too. Huh.

"Hey, buddy! Remember me?" I called as Charizard lifted his massive head. He roared in response, and stood up into a battle ready position. "I brought friends. I think you'll like them." I taunted, and took the first step into his lair. "Alrighty then Quads," I said to my siblings, who followed slightly behind me. "Altogether now!"

And so we started our playing. The disks came shooting out of all our stylers, and we tried at first a very heavy song, with lots of bass. A creation of Clyde's. Charizard apparently decided that he would have none of that, and shot up into the air and tried shooting a Flamethrower at us. Tiffany's camerupt countered it with Overheat, and Charizard started circling above us, pursued by our capture disks. Clyde raised the tempo of the song, and the rest of us easily followed along, our capture disks gaining speed as we did.

Charizard roared and attempted to dive bomb us. Tyranitar promptly intercepted it, and gave it a punch that sent Charizard flying. He hit the rocks pretty hard too.

"Haha! Woohoo!" Clyde yelled. I couldn't help but share his enthusiasm- this was pretty damn exhilarating.

"Change places!" I yelled, imitating the Mad Hatter as best I could. I started playing a new song, one of my own creation, that was very frenetic. Our capture disks started spinning faster and moving more erratically, heading towards Charizard, who was getting up shakily. He looked at the oncoming disks and lurched to the side. He then shot another Flamethrower at us- this time blocked by Slaking- and shot into an entrance at the end of the cave.

"After it, Quads!" I yelled, and we all shot off in pursuit of Charizard. Clyde and I were running, while Garret and Tiffany were being carried by their pokemon. Naturally, the two with pokemon help caught up first. By the time Clyde and I caught up, Garret and Tiff had Charizard cornered at the end of the passage, and had their two disks looping around it. Clyde and I joined in, and soon Charizard was roaring and lurching, trying to get out of the loops. Finally, it shot straight up and tried to dive bomb us again. This time it was Garret's Scizor who intercepted the attack, and he did so by slicing his claws up one of Charizard's wings. It looked similar to when you cut wrapping paper with scissors, except this slice was accompanied with a huge roar of pain and a lot of blood. Charizard crashed to the ground, and I assumed we had him down. Our disks began circling again.

It was taking longer than it took any one of us to capture the pokemon at our side, but I wasn't worried yet. After about three or four loops, however, Charizard opened his eyes and got shakily to his feet. After that he looked, not directly at me, like I was expecting, but right at Garret. He pinned Garret with a glare that left my little brother slightly pale, and his playing faltered.

"Pull yourself together." I snapped. Garret looked at me, seemed to give himself an internal shake, and resumed playing properly. Charizard again tried attacking us, this time raising a hand to perform Dragon Claw, but was stopped by Scizor again, who struck out with a claw and sent the beast flying backwards with the combined pinch and punch.

Charizard roared and got up- _again_- and this time raised his Dragon Claw and swiped, not at us, but directly at our disks. He hit mine and Tiff's dead on, much to my surprise. I felt my guitar shudder and spit out a screechy note I hadn't played. Tiffany's violin did the same thing, and I assumed this was how our stylers told us they had taken a lot of damage.

"Shit! You little bastard." I snarled as I started playing more furiously than before. My siblings matched my pace, and our disks were again circling Charizard. The beast roared defiantly at me, and again struck out at our disks, and again hit mine dead on. I felt my guitar shake again, and then the styler infused at the end powered down, and my disk lay useless on the ground. The little bastard had broken my styler!

Charizard was aiming at my siblings' disks now, and he managed to hit Garret's and Tiffany's. Clyde dodged the swipes aimed his way, thankfully, and I made a quick decision.

"Alright guys, pull back. We'll regroup outside of the challenge room," I said. They nodded, and returned their disks. We started booking it for the exit, with Charizard pursuing us this time. Normally, he would have been able to catch us no problem, but he had sustained multiple injuries along with a crippled wing. I hoped they hurt like a bitch.

As we were running, a voice came through the walkie-talkie we used to communicate.

"Sir, two rangers seem to have made it inside, and are clearing the other challenges. I think they're just about done the third one. We told them we were doing research here, and the fourth challenge was out of bounds. Do you have any further instruction for us?"

I began to grin like an idiot. What perfect timing!

"Yes, I have further instruction. Abandon your post and go wait with Gordor. I wish for the rangers to come join us." The grunt on the other end gave a confused 'yes sir' just as we were reaching the exit to the first room. I spun on my heel once we reached it.

"Alright! The plan is simple. We just have to hold off Charizard until the ranger gets here and captures it." I smiled. I looked over, and realized that without my styler, I had lost control of Tyranitar. "Oh, and Garret? Be a dear and keep my pokemon here for me."

Garret nodded, and easily recaptured Tyranitar for me. My siblings were playing again, but not to capture Charizard this time. They were just controlling their pokemon to keep Charizard where he was. This when on for about ten minutes, until our mutual friend Ranger Solana came cautiously into the room, bringing with her the Ringtown boy I recognized as Lunick.

"Well, well! Look who it is guys," I said loudly, capturing the attention of my siblings and the rangers. "Our Summerland buddy, and her little boyfriend."

The three of them turned their back on Charizard- he was too exhausted by now to really pose much of a threat, and spotted the two rangers. They grinned, and Clyde counted us into our little intro song.

"Even if you're in a hurry, stop in your tracks." Garret started smoothly, playing his guitar.

"Er, hey 'Lana? Who are these guys?" Lunick asked Solana. I wondered how he didn't know about us already. Maybe he was just stupid, and not putting two and two together.

"They're-"

"Open your ears to our melodic attacks!" Tiffany squealed happily, cutting off Solana's answer. She shot Tiffany a glare.

"Higher-ups in the Go Rock Squad." Solana finished while Tiffany played her violin solo.

"The rhythm of rage pounds the ground," Clyde said ominously, pounding out a different beat than what we had been practicing. It still sounded good.

"Let the melody of ambition rise to the skies," I yelled, and whipped out my guitar. I did it a bit too fast though, and ended up whacking Clyde in the head with it.

"Ouch! What the hell, man?"

"Whoops. Sorry bro," I said mildly. Solana was laughing like an idiot, and Lunick was snickering behind his hand. I got a little annoyed. We _were_ going to finish the song.

"If you don't know us, we'll cure your ignorance." I started, and my siblings joined in. Solana got a mischievous smile that I didn't like. "Billy! Garret! Clyde! Tiffany! The Go Rock Squad's hot-prospect band of key-shaker-and-taker celebrities! A name once heard and never forgotten! The Go Rock Quads!" Much to my displeasure, Solana started singing along with us when we got to the second part. Not only did she purposely yell louder than us and then slur the lyrics, like someone who doesn't know what they're singing along to, but she then replaced the words 'Go Rock Quads' with 'No Rocks Quads'.

Solana and Lunick were howling at this point, immensely amused by Solana's little prank and Clyde's whack to the head. I felt myself seething- how dare they mock me! How dare they insult my band, my music!

"Yes, yes. Very funny. Real mature, too," I said, working hard to keep the rage out of my voice. Losing my cool would only heighten the humiliation. "We've missed your little bit of spunk! Now, let me welcome you to the challenge of fire!" I said, spreading my arms wide. In my head I was already plotting my revenge.

"H-huh?" Lunick asked; apparently, he was too busy laughing to be listening. I had Solana's attention though. She had perked right up at the words 'challenge of fire'.

"Now, my dear _Union_ rangers, you can see that our friend Charizard here is in a world of suffering!" I tried to keep my voice sounding sympathetic, but it came out gleeful instead. My siblings and I parted, giving the two a clear view of Charizard, who was assessing this new threat while trying to staunch the flow of blood from his wing. "Now, maybe you should-"

I was cut off as Charizard suddenly let out a roar of pain. It seemed a little sudden to me, until I noticed that Clyde had thrown a rock at the place where Scizor had pinched him.

"_Clyde_." Garret snapped. "Pay attention." Clyde snickered, but put down his next rock.

"I thought it was a nice effect," he said innocently.

"You fiends!" Solana shouted, no longer in a laughing mood. "What have you done?"

"We didn't do it on purpose," I replied, mimicking Clyde's innocence. "But maybe you should do something about it. We certainly can't." I paused theatrically, pretending to think on the issue. "Why, how about you _capture_ it? That would make it nice and calm, so you can treat all those horrid, horrid injuries." I thought about saying 'boo-boos' but decided the slight might distract them. We need these two to focus.

"You scum! Don't you see what you've done? That Charizard is suffering" Lunick roared at us.

"The Charizard is suffering?" Clyde said, his voice politely shocked. "Thank you kindly for telling me. And…?"

"Why don't _you_ do something about it?" Solana challenged.

"Oh, the answer to that is exceedingly simple," Garret said. "It has nothing to do with us in the slightest. You're rangers- shouldn't _you_ be the ones offering a helping hand?"

"And you better hurry up with it." Tiffany interjected, clearly wanting to get her two cents in. "Looks to me like you're running out of time." I looked back at Charizard, and realized she was right. The great beasts eyes were closing and, realizing that there were still enemies to fight, he lurched forward clumsily, displaying just how weakened he really was.

Solana looked like she wanted to argue some more, but Lunick put a restraining hand on her shoulder.

"'Lana, I hate to admit it, but they're right," he said, much to my pleasure. "We have no choice."

Solana gave him a curt nod, and the two of them readied their stylers. Though Charizard could no longer really run or fly away, he put up a pretty good fight. But the two of them worked well together- whenever one was forced to lift the capture disk out of the way, the other would seamlessly continue the circle, ensuring the loops were not broken. It took them almost no time to capture the charizard.

"That's a little embarrassing." Garret muttered.

"We weakened it, bro," Clyde said. "It would've taken them much longer if Charizard was at full strength."

"Aw, now don't be bitter boys," I said to them, smiling. This was coming together quite well. I motioned to my siblings, and we sauntered over to the two rangers. "Bravo!" I said jubilantly. "That is exactly the kind of entertainment I expected from you two."

"I've had enough of you," Solana snapped. Lunick was still tending to Charizard's many wounds. "What the hell happened here? Why did you want us to clean up for you?"

"Well," I said slowly, "you see, what happened is…we tried to capture Charizard ourselves!" I saw Solana's outraged look, but pressed on anyway. "The problem was, our prototype stylers weren't quite up to snuff."

"And to make matters worse, our unfinished stylers caused injury to poor Charizard. An accident, of course," Garret said smoothly.

"Boy, did we ever luck out though!" Clyde exclaimed. "Thank goodness you guys came when you did, being all cheery and helpful." He gave them his trademark idiot grin, and I think Solana might have wanted to throw up. Which I think is an exaggeration. Clyde isn't _that_ ugly.

"Hey, we better thank you guys." Tiffany chirped. "You cleared the fourth challenge for us!"

"What are you saying?" Lunick asked. "All we did was capture Charizard. We didn't clear any kind of challenge…did we?"

"Lunick, you dolt!" Solana snapped. Lunick looked a little hurt. "Capturing Charizard _was_ the fourth challenge. They forced us into by hurting Charizard!" Oh, the look on that boy's face! I wish I had a camera to capture the moment. So much shock!

"I think it's time we had a look around, eh boys? And Tiff?" They all nodded.

"Toodles, rangers," Garret said, and they all started filing out. I began following them.

"Wait!" Solana shouted after me. My siblings looked back, but I motioned for them to keep going. "Why did you do this? What do you want?" She looked all angry and desperate, which pleased me. That'll show her to mess with me. Though…I thought she could stand to look a little more scared.

"Well," I turned away, and spoke to her over my shoulder. "There's a legend about this relic. Maybe you've heard of it?" I asked her innocently, dropping my voice. "If all four challenges are completed, a great calamity will befall the Fiore region." I had dropped my voice even more, until it was ominously low and I had Solana's full attention. "We, the Go Rock Squad, _desperately_ want that calamity to happen." I was just whispering now, and I think Solana was actually on her tiptoes. "Then we got a tip-off that some rangers- that'd be you, love- were completing challenges left, right and centre. It was only too easy to convince you rangers to complete the fourth challenge for us. Such bleeding hearts." I smiled a little and turned my head a bit more to see Solana's reaction to my words more clearly.

"I…don't understand." I couldn't actually hear the words, but I could see her mouth form them. She had a look of intense focus and confusion on her face.

"I don't expect you to." I said it so low that I don't think she heard me. The next bit I made just audible. "Anyway…don't you wonder what happened to the Entei statue? I certainly do." I let that sink in for a second, and then I practically shouted, "I hope it's nothing good!" Solana nearly jumped out of her skin. I laughed loudly, waved over my shoulder, and left. Ha, this was fun!

I left the little cave, only to notice that my family was nowhere to be seen. "Huh?" I looked around, until I heard a hushed 'boy!' from a little cavern to my right. I walked over to see my family huddled inside it.

"After some further research inside this cave," my father started, "we've concluded that Entei will appear here first, and then move to a different part of the cavern. Because we want it cornered, we're waiting here to see where it goes."

"Uh-huh," I said slowly. It didn't look like there was that much more room in there for me. But, Father wants us to wait and cuddle, so wait and cuddle we shall. "Alrighty then. Scoot over, Tiff. I don't want to get caught in between Clyde and Garret." Tiffany giggled, and obligingly shifted closer to Clyde, leaving just enough room for me. I hopped in, feeling a little awkward. But, of course, the only way to make a situation comfortable is to make light of it. "Well, this _is_ cozy, isn't it?" I said brightly.

"All lovely and warm. Clyde, you are oh so cuddly! But if you try to move your hands even an inch from where they are, I am afraid I'll have to feed you to Scizor," Garret said pleasantly.

"I don't want to touch one inch of your greasy skin, bro." Clyde snapped. "This sucks, couldn't we have picked a bigger cave?"

"Hush!" Father hissed. "The rangers are coming."

And indeed they were. They were walking cautiously towards the entei statue. Just as they were right in front of it, the fourth torch lit itself, making a row of blue, green, purple and finally red flames.

"That's…kinda pretty," Lunick said to himself. Solana hushed him. Hmmm…she didn't seem to be in a very good mood. Lunick looked all hurt again. Ha.

Just then, the statue started to glow. Now, _that_ was kinda pretty. And cool- I had never seen anything do that except for in movies. It looked to me as though each different plane on the statue's carvings were glowing at a different intensity. The light grew brighter and brighter until it was hard to look at and then just…stopped. And there was no more statue. It was like it had been eaten up by the light. There was silence as the two rangers waited for something else to happen.

"…Is that it?" Lunick finally asked, when there was still nothing but silence. "The statue disappeared? That was the calamity?"

"That's what it looks like…" Solana said hesitantly, not seeming to believe her own words.

"Well that was friggin' anticlimactic!" Lunick said loudly, voicing my thoughts exactly. "Though…hmmm. Should we do a patrol of Olive Jungle, just to make sure everything's in the right?"

"Definitely." Solana agreed.

Just as they were leaving and right before they were out of earshot, I heard Lunick say to Solana, "Hey 'Lana? Did you really have to call me a dolt in front of those guys back there…?" Haha! So little Lunick was embarrassed by Solana's name calling.

I was mulling that over for about a minute before I realized something: Nothing was happening with the entei statue, or where it used to be, anyway. I felt annoyed- shouldn't Entei have shown up by now?

"Here, Entei, Entei, Entei," I whispered, and then whistled like I was calling a dog. "Here boy."

Almost like it was responding to my call, the ground under out feet started to get very hot. As we watched, the light returned, and was again growing brighter, exactly where the statue was. It grew brighter, just like last time, and then abruptly stopped. Except, instead of leaving nothingness in its wake, it left a massive, angry-looking entei. The beast roared, and as it did so, the water that was in pools everywhere and the small lake around it started to boil. As I watched, it seemed to thicken and darken, until it was lava pooling on the ground and around the statue, and it seemed like we really were in a volcano. Heat rose in waves from the ground, and I was suddenly very thankful I had left my jacket at home.

Looking satisfied with its work, Entei turned and rushed into a little cave at the back of the room.

"Go, go, go!" I hissed, and in a heartbeat we were racing after it. Father and Clyde fell behind a bit, but Garret, Tiff and I managed to keep him in our sights. He led us all around the bloody place, seeming to pick a very particular path to where he wanted to go. He wasn't aware of our following, for which I was grateful. After all, I still didn't have a styler or pokemon. The pokemon had, without me noticing, leapt out of their hiding places and joined in the chase. There were other pokemon around too, pokemon that definitely hadn't been here before. I don't think I'd ever even seen a slugma or magcargo before that moment.

Finally, we reached Entei's destination. He slowed to a walk, and seemed to strut regally into his destination. I decided already that I didn't like this pokemon. Father gave us a curt nod- I think it was his way of saying good job, but I really couldn't care less. He left with the super styler- a clunky, black version of what the rangers had, and followed Entei into his dwelling. I knew it was now our job to make sure no one interfered with the experiment.

"And now we wait for Father to finish his little game." I slumped against the wall, already bored. I hoped a ranger would come in and alleviate the boredom that was sure to come. I didn't have to wait long for this to happen.

A blond ranger came running through the entrance after us. She looked like she might have been a real beauty, except her blond hair was covered in soot, her uniform was dirty with mud (presumably from another mission before this) and her face was a blotchy red from a combination of heat and anger.

"Go Rock Squad, stop!" She shouted and, spotting the pokemon accompanying us, whipped out her styler.

"Actually sweetie," I said, turning to her and strumming my guitar, "we're known as the Go Rock Quads."

"I don't give a damn what you call yourselves," she snapped. _Looks like this little skitty has a temper_, I thought. "You're nothing but lowlife criminal dirtbags."

"Nooooo," Clyde contradicted her, beating on his drum. "We're _teenage dirtbags_! Ha-ha! Get it?" He yelled at her as Slaking rushed forwards, winding up to take a massive swing with a powerful arm. Startled, Blondie raised her styler arm to block the hit. Slaking fist came down, and destroyed her styler in one hit, though left her undamaged.

"Whoa. Nice one, little bro." Garret complimented him. Funny how the two of them only seemed to get along in front of rangers. Oh well. I wasn't complaining.

"S'all for my sweet little sis." Clyde answered, grinning toothily at Tiffany. I thought I recognized a certain gleam in his eye which told me that today was one of his days. The blond ranger shot us a glare, and turned on her heel to run. I guess she was going to try and get more rangers.

"We have to stop her from getting more help. Garret, Tiff, with me. Clyde, you stay here and guard Dad while he does his experiment." I commanded. Clyde nodded happily, and the rest of us ran off to head off the blond one before she could get help.

I looked back once, and saw Clyde plop down on the ground with his drum, awaiting any threat.

* * *

**A/N: No Rocks Quads? Get it? Oooooh, double entendre to those with a dirty mind!**

**The nickname 'Lana doesn't come from me. I lifted it out of Skyfire146's story 'No One Said It Would Be Easy'. Great story. Go read it.**

**Also…Long chapter is LONG. And probably not well edited. Error point- I command you!**

**Did anyone else find Charizard to be a bitch to capture? I sure did…I wish the Quads actually had weakened it for you.**

**I didn't change what the Go Rock Quads said to the rangers too much here, because I simply LOVE that part too much. But I think I definitely added character to the rangers. And we get to meet Lunick!**

**Also, to clear something up…pokemon names are capitalized only when being used as a name. When referring to a species in general, it's lower case. That is my standing on the capitalization war on this site.**

**Next chapter is partially written. I got inspired halfway through this one and couldn't stop myself.**

**Review? Yes.**


	8. You're Lost Little Girl

**Clyde's POV**

I plopped down and placed my drum in front of me, ready to play. I started tapping out a light beat and glanced Slaking over. He was a stupid brute, it was true, but it wasn't really intelligence that mattered in a fight, as far as I was concerned. He was big and strong, and I was confident that I could take care of any misplaced ranger that happened to wander into my midst. I noted a sense of pride that Billy had chosen me to guard Father's all important experiment.

Though, to be honest, I couldn't really tell whether Billy chose me because he thought I was capable enough, or simply because I was the only one with an undamaged styler. I didn't bother wasting time trying to figure out Billy though- the four year gap between us coupled with his sneering confidence were always enough to let me know that there was no point in pursuing any kind of deeper relationship than the one we had.

He held the same opinion that I knew Garret did; that I was a stupid oaf, that I was always more concerned with the material than the music. They thought I was just a typical teenager, who occasionally managed to get his head in the game and spit out a few songs. And frankly, I wasn't sure if I didn't believe them. Whenever I looked back on my life, I saw exactly that; a stupid teenager in a band. I didn't seem to be going anywhere in life, and occasionally I could feel the lack of purpose to what I was doing.

Not that I would ever, _ever_, let anyone see that. I was already lazy and stupid, and I wasn't going to add 'depressed' or 'emo' to the list of negative things associated with me. It was easy to hide-as long as I kept up with the fashions and made sure I came across as 'cool' the word 'oaf' would get replaced with the word 'bully'. And there was much more respect given to bullies than to oafs.

But that wasn't enough. I could demand respect from everyone but my brothers and myself. I _knew_ that this was not what I wanted to be, but I couldn't see any other way. I was disappointing myself, but I thought that if I could do well with the band and with protecting Father's experiment, I'd be able to attribute some self-worth to my name. I wouldn't just be 'Clyde, the cool bully,' I'd be 'Clyde, the powerful member of the Go Rock Quads.'

And that's what I really wanted, right? Because of course this lack of self-worth when comparing myself to my charismatic brothers was what caused my drag. I did try to summon the inspiration for making music, really, but there was always the lack of confidence that I could really do anything with it pulling me backwards. The voice in my head telling me that I was just another teenager… why are you bothering to try with this nonsense when it won't give you anything.

But I knew now that it could. I could use my talent- because I was talented, wasn't I! - To command this massive beast, to help destroy the entire Union. I'd really be somebody then.

The beat on my drum got a little faster as I realized this- we really could destroy the Union, couldn't we? Father had the plan all in place, and we had powerful pokemon on our side. I'd make sure this experiment was a success, and I'd be really respected in the organization. My cut of the profits would probably increase as well.

And if the organization respected me, my siblings would too! Well, maybe not Billy. I don't think Billy really respected anyone but Billy. But maybe Garret… humph. Stupid Garret. I hated him. I hated that I had to be constantly stuck with him, constantly hear him play in rehearsal. He was a damn good musician, much better than me unless I was inspired. Which I usually wasn't. Always so good, and with so much dignity! Forever the gentleman, forever so much better than little Clyde could ever be. Garret, with his consistent talent and his consistent wit. Big bro Garret never saw any reason to respect me.

But he would. I could play this drum like a champ; I could destroy anything that crossed my path. Nothing was going to stop me today. I was sincerely hopeful that a whole troop of rangers would come barging in, just so I could crush every one of them.

And right on cue, in came ranger Solana, with a little following of fire-type friend pokemon and her cute little partner. I smiled. It may not be a troop of rangers, but it was a start. Time to avenge my precious little sister.

"Boom-boom ba-doom, you ain't getting to the next room." I taunted Solana as she froze, just for a second, and then started to prepare her friend pokemon. This struck me as hilarious; I was in a strange mood. I felt electricity flow through my veins, and I was excited for a chance to command Slaking through my drum, to pound a beat out for all to hear and for him to internalize, to act on. It seemed a beautiful concept to me. I started a slow, rumbling beat, and Slaking roared. I smiled.

Ranger Solana's pokemon seemed very capable under her command. She had also come to learn that friend pokemon could be used in battle as well as in captures. Well, they would normally be able to battle. The lot of them were useless against Slaking, and so she commanded them to stay out of the way while she commenced capturing.

She seemed very inept to me. And very young; though I knew she couldn't be too much younger than my seventeen years; her face was very open and trusting. I could see every emotion that flashed across it, none of which were treacherous or elusive. She also had a small amount of excess fat, which gave her a slightly childlike appearance, despite her curves.

"Do you know what I think?" I asked her in a sing-song voice, happily riding the apparent high that I was currently on. She didn't respond, she was too focused on her capture. I continued anyway. "I think you're a little girl playing a grown-up's game. Are you having fun, little girl?" I could feel the music starting in my core, flowing out through my limbs and my drum. I started to sing. "_You're lost little girl_."

"You're scum, stupid boy!" She snarled back at me. I was unfazed.

"_You're lost little girl_

_You're lost, tell me who… are you?_"

This was why I lived. I could feel my musical core in earnest now; it flowed through me, made my lyrics so that I didn't have to think, made the beat like a second nature to me. I was no longer separate from my drum; it was attached to the power I felt inside of me just as surely as my voice was, my hands were. Slaking, too, was a part of me. When he moved, he moved in tandem to my drum, which was moving to my hands, which were all under the complete control of this musical surge rising up inside me.

"_Think that you know what to do_

_Impossible, yes. But it's true_."

I was on top of the world. However, so, it seemed, was Solana. She responded to Slaking's movements in such a way that she seemed a part of my music too. I was starting to feel the same connection to her as I was to Slaking. I realized that she had entered into my little power chain, my little equation. Slaking was under my control, and she was a slave to Slaking's movements. But she was still somehow working around that.

"_I think that you know what to do_

_You're sure that you know what to do_."

This was what Billy called one of my 'productive days'. He didn't understand though. I wasn't just productive, I was electric.

Slaking's harsh movements and heavy slamming had started to shake loose some rocks around us. They were falling to the ground like rain, some of them dangerously big. I paid them no heed, though Solana danced around them in a slight panic. They were just another part of my musical chain.

"You're insane!" She screamed at me as I sat languidly in the shower of gravel, still singing and beating. "You're a madman!"

"_You're lost little girl_

_You're lost little girl_

_You're lost, tell me who… are you?_"

Slaking had grabbed Solana around the middle and lifted her up in the air with a maddened roar. He was squeezing her, and I could practically feel her bones begin to give away under my own hands, while at the same time I felt her ache in my side. She shrieked wordlessly, unable to free her hand to operate her styler. Her partner tried zapping Slaking, but its weak electric attacks could do nothing against a beast like Slaking. The little yellow thing squeaked helplessly, wanting some instruction.

I was in ecstasy. I wasn't beating my drum; I was caressing it, practically making love to it. I was no longer thinking of avenging my sweet little sister, or of showing Garret how I was just as good as he was, or of making Billy proud. I was making music, I was making _magic_.

"Solana!" A voice yelled from far off. I recognized the boy that had accompanied her. I guessed he had given up trying to marshal more rangers. He rushed at Slaking and, seeing that Solana's friend pokemon could do no good, took it upon himself to simply punch Slaking in the eye. Had he hit Slaking anywhere else, he would have reeled back, clutching a broken hand. But the eye was soft and vulnerable, and Slaking let Solana drop, clutching his face and roaring in disapproval. I noted that the styler attaching my drum and Slaking registered the hit, and seemed damaged.

"'Lana, are you okay?" He asked, as he helped his fellow ranger stumble away from my Slaking.

"_Think that you know what to do_

_Impossible, yes. But it's true_."

"Yeah, I-I'm fine," she stuttered, clutching her side and unsteadily got to her feet. "Listen, I think I've figured out how to deal with this guy. You go ahead and stop Gordor. He has Entei." Ranger Male looked like he wanted to argue, but Slaking had recovered and was bearing down on them. He nodded an affirmative and rushed ahead to find Dad and Entei. I didn't care to try and stop him; that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was the _music_.

"_I think that you know what to do_

_You're sure that you know what to do_."

And I was right. Solana _did_ know what to do. She was now moving directly in time to my beat, directly in time to my magic. Even her loops seemed to complete themselves in tandem with the beat. I knew that this was wrong, that if she managed to complete this capture, the chain would be broken and the magic would stop. I put everything I had into making Slaking crush her. But she knew our pattern now; she was a _part_ of our pattern. We couldn't get a grip on her.

"_You're lost little girl_

_You're lost little girl_."

But she wasn't lost. Not anymore. She looped and dodged and bounced around perfectly in time with my beat, no matter how hard I insisted that she was a lost little girl. This was ruining the magic, ruining the image that had been so perfect before.

"_You're lost_…" No. She wasn't lost. She had completed her capture. I felt my drum styler register this, felt it release Slaking, who went lumbering away. The chain was broken. The magic was gone.

My music electricity was leaving too. I could feel it slipping away- no longer the tangible power it was before, but a simple smoke that I couldn't catch no matter how I tried. I had been feeling so _good_, and now all that good was going away. I was slipping back into the same mundane existence that left me to ponder when the next meal was, or how close sleep was, or how annoying my brother was. Stupid things. Things I hated. I had been something truly great for a bit, something really respectable, and that ranger _brat_ had stolen it away. Made me Clyde again, when before I was a god.

I was _pissed_.

I threw my drum away; it was once again an object separate from my entity, once again just a tool to be used. I rushed at Solana with a maddened cry and tackled her to the ground. I wanted to beat her face in, I wanted to really feel her bones shatter under me, instead of the shadow I felt while I was controlling Slaking.

I felt her body contract for half a second, and then she fucking _exploded_. I was pumping my fists into her wherever I could, and she was kicking with all her might, bucking and writhing and shoving, trying to get me off of her. I got a good one right in her face, and felt some satisfaction as I felt her nose break. But I'd had to draw myself up to really get a good wind up for the hit, and she managed a hard shove that ended up nearly throwing me. Nearly.

But I was much stronger than her, and much heavier. I used her momentary freedom to flip her over, and smashed her face against the ground, flattening her already broken nose. I got a few good hits into her ribs too, until we were interrupted.

"Clyde! Boy! What the devil are you doing?" Dad was yelling at me. Sounded pissed too.

"_Get the hell off my friend!_" The boy ranger, Lunick, roared. I felt a blunt force to my side, and I knew he had kicked me. The next thing I knew, I had been forced off Solana and was looking up at the enraged face of Lunick, who was apparently trying to pin me.

I didn't care who it was. I was stronger, I was a better fighter, and I was violently angry. I easily threw him off, and now it was the two of us fighting. Though he was better at it than Solana, I still clearly had the upper hand. I was punching his face, his ribs, anything I could reach while he struck out uselessly against me. Dad was yelling, telling me to stop, I think. I didn't care. My inspiration had been stolen from me. There was hell to pay.

"Clyde!" That was Tiffany's yell. I guessed the mission was over, and my siblings were coming to collect Father and me. I didn't care. I wasn't done.

I felt hands- two sets of hands- lifting and dragging me away from Lunick. I think Solana was restraining him, but I was too busy struggling and cursing to really notice.

"Clyde, calm _down_." This was Garret's voice, and I realized it was him and Billy restraining me. "You're excessive violence is pointless. The mission is over. We've succeeded."

_Who cares?_ I thought.

"You should, bro." Billy answered me. Had I said that out loud? "You're kind of part of this whole thing. C'mon." I was being dragged away, out of sight of the rangers. I think they were tending to their wounds. Ha. "There's a time and place for beating on rangers." Billy continued. "Now is not the time. Can't argue with the place though."

"Stupid boy." Father hissed. "If we're going to replace the Union, you're going to need a better head on your shoulders than that."

"He's right, you know." Garret counselled me in that annoyingly righteous tone. "Senseless violence does not help our image, or our popularity."

"I don't give a damn!" I roared, shaking myself loose from their grip. "I had it! Don't you get it? I fucking had it!" There was no one here I could beat on now, so I kicked at a nearby rock. It went sailing out of sight, and I could hear it clatter to the ground somewhere far away. "That stupid bitch stole it!" I was still yelling, inserting random swear words and kicking things. Tiffany looked scared, Billy impassive, Father mad, and Garret… he just raised an eyebrow at my behaviour. "I had… I had…shit... "

Gone. I couldn't even hold on to that much rage for very long. No one was giving me any fuel to continue. I needed someone to oppose me, someone to say that I was being stupid so I could rage against them.

And I knew. It was over, and there was nothing I could do to get it back again, whatever 'it' was. I was once more some stupid bully. A failure. It would be a long time before I thought of something other than when I could sneak a snack, or sleep in. I would spend who knew how long trying to annoy my brother, trying to make him admit why he despised me so much. Because that, most of all, was what bothered me. No one said outright 'Clyde, you're a useless sack of crap'. But I knew I was. I was nothing, nothing, compared to my family.

Father was seething silently, recognizing that it was useless to try and reason with me right now. I didn't really care what he said anyway.

Tiffany was scared and confused. She couldn't understand why I was so mad. She didn't know what I had just lost. She was just blissfully unaware of what I had just gone through and the magic I'd had.

Garret was looking at me oh-so-smugly. As I looked at him he seemed to say 'You've hit a low I never will, Clyde. I'll never loose control the way you have, little brother. I have my dignity.' We rarely communicated so clearly- it was a little ironic.

And Billy… unreadable, as always. Was he pissed at me? Did he think me a fool? Was he in fact proud of the harm I had brought to the two rangers? After all, he was the only one to have actually hurt the rangers before me. I remembered him telling us proudly of how he had Tyranitar punch Solana into a tree. But I also remembered his words earlier: _There's a time and place for beating on rangers. Now is not the time._ Shit. I didn't know what the hell he was thinking.

I looked at my siblings, and I realized what a fool I really was. Look at them! Look at how straight they walk, at how proud they seem. How controlled and thought out their words are. And then there's Clyde. What's his problem, anyway? Why's he always so mad? Why does he care so much about looking cool? He tries too hard. I could feel myself fully deflating under their stares.

Guess I was the one that was lost.

**A/N: Holy excessive use of parallelism, Batman!**

**Clyde…this chapter made me fall in love with him so much more. The song he was playing was 'You're Lost Little Girl' (I know, surprising title right?) by The Doors. **

**I think I'll make a playlist of the songs I used at the end of this. I've already got one started on my iPod.**

**A big thank you to my wonderful beta, Halloween Witch**


	9. Soil to the Sun

**Garret's POV**

"Boy, you could have cost us our entire reputation with that ridiculous and impulsive act back there…" Father was lecturing Clyde on his astounding level of stupidity, something that I thought needed to happen more often (the lecturing, not the stupidity). While I agreed with Father's perspective, I wasn't paying particular attention to his long-winded ranting on a subject that I could learn nothing from. Instead, I let my mind wander aimlessly through the misty and dreamlike place that is incoherent thought.

My mind drifted easily as I let Father's words wash over me. I found myself thinking, without really thinking, about things such as the song I was writing, the lack of socializing we had been doing with our various friends, ways to improve our stylers, Scizor's apparent competency in battle… And then my mind slammed into a thought that stopped its wanderings cold.

The charizard. It had looked- no, it had _glared_- right at me. In his eyes I could see intelligence, a sentient being like myself. And that being- that proud being- was absolutely enraged to be treated in such a way as we were treating it. It had thoughts. It had feelings. It had-

No. That was wrong. Pokemon were inferior beings, no more capable of coherent thought than a cockroach is. Their actions and reactions were entirely based on instinct. Charizard had sensed that I was somewhat uncomfortable with excessive violence, and so was targeting me as the weakest. That's what had happened- the charizard was preparing to attack. Billy was right to snap at me for faltering; what could be dumber than letting your guard down when you could see you were about to be attacked?

_You know that's not true…_A voice told me, the same one that had advised me against going along with the whole 'Go Rock Squad' idea in the first place. It was the voice that I had shoved aside when I got that first power rush of being able to control a creature far stronger than myself. It was easy to dismiss- it was simply the side of me that disliked causing harm, the bit of my mind that separated me from psychopaths. _From Billy_, the same voice whispered. I again shoved it away. I had logic on my side, and logic could easily trump these silly sympathies for creatures that didn't deserve it.

Though, I had to concede it a point. Billy did show multiple signs of psychopathic tendencies. He lacked empathy, he was a fantastic liar, he was most definitely intelligent, he had a superficial kind of charm, he was manipulative… but Billy was not a psychopath, even if he did concern me at times. And I didn't think that out of pure impulse- I had done research on psychopathic symptoms (and Father had as well, I was pretty sure). Billy may have shown some signs, but he lacked certain crucial ones. He was far from antisocial, he learned from past experience, and he was not impulsive. The logical part of me whispered uneasily that the proof outweighed the contradictions, but there was one hard truth that I held on to that was somewhere between logic and instinct. Billy loved us, he always had. From everything that I read, no psychopath would have such strong family ties, or be so preoccupied with their happiness. Billy loved us, he was not a psychopath. I knew that to be true.

Oddly, I suspected Father had not come to the same conclusion I had. He treated Billy like something to be contained and used, but not trusted. Well, he really treated all of us that way. But it was with Billy that it was most prominent. So really, it was no mystery why the two of them bashed heads so often.

However, I could never explain so easily why Clyde and I disagreed over nearly all we discussed. I could only assume that it was a combination of our vastly different personalities and the fact that not only were we siblings, but we were the two without the benefits of being youngest or oldest. The boy just got under my skin so utterly that sometimes it was all I could do not to whip around and punch him in his stupid slack-jawed face. Often, it was only the fact that such an action was clearly below my dignity that made me cease the fist that was already clenched. Though such things were clearly not below _his _dignity.

We had been travelling for hours, and Father was still reaming Clyde out for his abysmal behaviour. No one else was talking, but it was clear from Billy and Tiffany's facial expressions that they had had more than enough of Father's rant.

"For Arceus's sake Dad, lay off him. He screwed up, I think he gets it," Billy said irritably when we were about twenty minutes away from the Dusk Factory. This would be one of the last nights we'd spend here- tomorrow Father was leaving for the recently built Go Rock Squad headquarters and would send for us once he deemed everything up to snuff.

"Clyde's actions could have seriously harmed our operation and our reputation. He needs to be informed of his wrongdoings." Father sniffed in response to Billy's comment. Billy was, apparently, too exhausted to care about responding and simply huffed in irritation without saying anything. Thankfully, Father seemed to have decided that Clyde had indeed gotten the point, and the rest of the trip was spent in silence.

I didn't like silence. My siblings teased me for being constantly chatty, but I couldn't help it. Silence got under my skin just as surely as Clyde did, but in a more insidious way. It crept through me, leaving an odd sense of muffled panic and isolation behind. I liked the connection of conversation, and I liked background noise to connect me to my surroundings. I just liked sound to connect me to the world around me. Silence, to be quite blunt, scared me.

I wasn't about to break this silence with chatter though. The mood simply wasn't right for celebrating our success (_all thanks to Clyde_, I thought sullenly) and I didn't want to say anything to start Father on his tangent again. So it was in silence that we travelled.

It was already dark by the time we got home, and everyone muttered words of bed and sleep, despite not yet having supper. Clyde was the only one who remained silent, which was odd. I was expecting him to complain about the lack of food after such a long day. I guessed he was still grumpy about his, shall we say, little mishap.

Everyone else had left for their respective rooms to retire for the night, and I was just leaving the bathroom after brushing my teeth. I'd expected the hall to be empty, but I was startled to see Billy leaning casually against the opposite wall, apparently waiting for me.

"Hey, little bro," he said as I stopped in my tracks. His face was carefully blank, and I scrambled internally, trying to guess what he was about to say. "Want to talk to you about something."

"Alright," I said slowly, still trying to analyze his face. "What is it you wish to enquire of me?"

"I'm worried about you, bro," he said casually. "You know, there was that moment, when we were fighting Charizard when you faltered. He looked like he wanted to attack you, and you almost stopped playing. It was when he looked up at you, remember? And then, I saw you recapture Clyde's slaking for him to hold until we fixed the stylers and made sure his was still fine. You looked… reluctant. Not to mention you were pretty quiet on the way here. That's not like you bro. I just want to make sure you aren't about to bail out on us here."

"No, I am most certainly not about to 'bail out on you,'" I said a little too curtly. Billy just raised an eyebrow, and I mentally slapped myself and tried to soften my voice. "I'm not about to leave you to the ironically merciless rangers. They have insulted us twice now. You're my family, and I can assure you that the band is priority."

"Which is nice," Billy said, eyes narrowing a bit. "But that's not really what I wanted to know. I thought you'd be able to tell that." I said nothing here. I was pretty sure I knew what Billy was getting at, but saying this out loud myself would not help my case. Billy leaned forward a bit, and spoke in a low tone. I had to repress a shudder. "I want to make sure you're not going _soft _on us here. You and I are going to have a bit of a problem if you start whining about the pain these pokemon are supposedly in."

It was in this moment, with Billy accusing me of things I knew in my heart to be true, that I realized that I couldn't have left them if I wanted to. Even if, against all odds, the irrational part of me won out and I started feeling sorry for the pokemon under our control, I could no more choose to stop living with my siblings and our band than I could choose to sprout wings and fly.

I was gathering my thoughts, trying to think of the best way to assuage Billy's concerns, and I waited a beat too long. Billy kept talking.

"It's just that I remember how you were the last one to be convinced that what we're doing is a good idea. At the time I assumed it was because you didn't think it would work, and jumped on board only when you thought we stood a chance. Now I'm thinking you had different motives."

"Billy," I started, still gathering my thoughts but not wanting Billy to continue, "I was startled when Charizard glared at me so suddenly, and I think you were right to snap at me. I wondered if Slaking was quite a good match for Clyde, giving the incident that preceded its release, and Clyde's reaction to it. That's why I hesitated." Billy stayed silent. "A-and you were right the first time. I didn't think the Go Rock Squad had any chance of seeing the successful disestablishment of the Union, which was why I didn't like it at first. To be totally honest, I'm still not sure if it's going to work out. But I'm going to stick with it."

"If you say so," Billy said slowly, not seeming to believe me.

"I'm not going soft." I insisted, unable to think of any further proof for this. Billy just huffed.

"Whatever. If it works for you, just keep telling yourself that. Whatever it takes, do it. I'm going to bed. Night." He walked off.

"Good night," I said. "Nice talking with you," I muttered under my breath once he was out of earshot.

I was a long time falling asleep that night.

* * *

I woke up the next morning at 8:34, exactly. I didn't always wake up at the same time, but it was usually in between eight and nine. I stared up at the ceiling for a little while, trying to remember why I felt so unmotivated to get up. And then I remembered my nagging conscience and my fight with Billy. Well, at least he didn't seem to care about returning to the subject. As long as I stayed faithful.

I went through the motions of getting myself ready for the day, all the while wondering how long it would take Father to decide to call us up to the main base. I hoped it was soon- while the Dusk Factory had seemed like a huge step up from our original little home, the presence of so many oily machines and grunts with less than perfect standards for personal hygiene left the place feeling dirty and unwelcoming. Hopefully this new base would be better.

I was the first one to the kitchen out of my siblings, and sat eating my breakfast while vaguely listening to the radio playing in the next room. As I ate, a couple of female grunts joined me in the kitchen. They had been chatting amiably while they were walking in, but once they caught sight of me their chatter stopped abruptly.

"Good morning, sir," said the taller one, who seemed to walk a little straighter and wore more makeup than her friend. Her tone reminded me of the superior position I held over them, something I had almost forgotten. Insofar it had been only Billy and Father who took the position of being a boss to heart. Which seemed natural, since they were both leaders by nature.

I nodded slightly in their direction. "Good morning." The shorter one simply grabbed some cereal and quickly left the kitchen to eat somewhere else. The taller one, however, took her time, humming to herself and carefully choosing what she would have, apparently not as intimidated by my presence as her friend had been.

"I hear the new base is nearly finished," she said casually, flipping her eggs over in the frying pan.

"Yes," I responded, pleased to have someone to chat with. "Fa- er, Gordor will be calling my siblings and me up once it's finished. Likely some grunts will be asked to tag along as well."

"That's exciting. Hope I get to go- not that I dislike it here, sir." She added as an insincere afterthought.

I chuckled slightly. "Really?" I said. "Well, I very much dislike it here. I find the excessive oily machinery to be rather distasteful."

"Yes, the machines can get rather dirty." She crinkled her nose, and I wondered if she was one of the grunts that worked with the machines, helping to mass produce our Super Stylers. "At least there's lots of room to keep the pokemon. Goodness knows we have enough of them hanging around here."

I had never really taken an extended tour of the factory, and this came as a mild surprise to me. "Do we?" I asked. I was almost finished my own breakfast at this point. "I've never noticed. Where are they all?"

"Um, the holding centres are in the east wing, sir. Near where generators two and three are," she said, sounding somewhat surprised that I didn't know this. "I myself caught many of the ones in holding room two, sir." She added proudly.

"Really? Good for you." I got up and emptied my plate into the sink. "I'll have to swing by there sometime and see if there's anything worth using." I was actually thinking that there might be a pokemon that could replace Clyde's slaking. I muttered a goodbye and started wandering back to my room, thinking about the song I was writing. I passed Billy in the hall; he still looked rather drowsy and rumpled, and I felt sorry for the grunt I had left in the kitchen. Billy tended to be a little cranky in the morning.

"Hey, Garret. Rehearsal at around twelve, out in our usual spot. Tell the others if you see them," he told me as we passed.

"Sure thing, Billy," I responded, doubting that I would see my two siblings up before eleven, especially since I wasn't really planning on coming out of my room and being social.

As I expected, I didn't see my other siblings until I went out to rehearsal. Billy must have tracked them down and told them, because Clyde was already there when I went out. The sullen mood he was in yesterday seemed to have passed, and he was sitting on the ground just staring at the drum in his lap.

"Hey bro," I called out to him. He looked up and, spotting me, got up off the ground. "Have you had your styler checked out yet? I'm still holding Slaking for you." I decided to confront him later about my doubts over his partnering with Slaking.

"No," he said moodily. "The scientists are fixing Billy's first."

"Well, Billy does use his styler to control his pokemon more than you do. Not to mention his was definitely more damaged." I pointed out. I could see he was about to snap something in response, and was already gearing up my own comeback to whatever selfish thing was about to come out of his mouth when I heard Tiffany's voice.

"Hey guys. Billy's going to be here in a second- he's just gone to pick up his styler from the lab."

"Hey, Tiff." I greeted her mildly, and decided I might as well call Tyranitar out so that Billy could retake control of it. I wasn't entirely sure if capturing a pokemon that was already under the influence of another Super Styler would work, since our stylers didn't have a release button, but it was better than letting a perfectly good pokemon go back to the jungle. However, I found that when I strummed on my guitar to call him out, not only did Tyranitar come lumbering out from wherever he was staying, but Slaking and Scizor also came to my call. I realized then that there was no way I could give separate commands to the various pokemon under my control.

"Hey, hey! Looks like a party out here." Billy joined us, looking at the pokemon gathered around me with mild amusement. "Tiff, why didn't you invite your camerupt?"

"Because he's a total square and didn't want to come." Tiffany answered.

"Billy, bro. I hate to be a party pooper, but I'm not entirely convinced that your styler will be able to capture Tyranitar while he's under my control."

"Yeah, I was thinking about that on the way out here. I was going to ask Father, but he's in one of his moods. Still tweaking the Power Styler, I think. Trying to find a way around the whole 'released when captured' thing. Which reminds me- Clyde, he said yours could be fixed after rehearsal today." Clyde nodded.

"So, do you have any thoughts on what to do about Tyranitar? Because I can't think of anything definite." I was going through the styler's functions in my head, trying to think if there was anything that would conflict from having shared control over a pokemon.

"I figure the only thing we can do is to try it out," Billy said brightly, then turned his guitar on Tyranitar, who stood looking at him impassively. I rather thought it would be a good idea to ask Father first, but Billy seemed pretty set on trying this out now. And so I just watched as Billy started playing, the capture disk whisking in quick loops around Tyranitar.

And then, just when the capture would have been finished, Tyranitar let out an almighty roar and slammed his fist into the ground. Letting out another roar, he set his sights on Billy and started to rush towards him.

"Oh, shit," I muttered under my breath as I started playing a tune that would convince my pokemon to attack. Slaking and Scizor combined easily beat back Tyranitar, but he was still roaring and struggling to get to Billy. I heard Tiffany's violin start up, and soon enough Camerupt had joined Scizor and Slaking.

I noted, with slight indignation, that while Billy's styler had not broken mine, it was vibrating in a way that told me it had definitely been severely damaged. At this point I wasn't so much concerned about Tyranitar tearing up the place- the other three pokemon combined were more than a match for him- so much as I was dreading Father's reaction when he heard about this.

"Well," Billy said mildly as the four of us backed away from the scuffling pokemon, "that could have gone better."

"At least Garret's styler didn't break," Tiffany replied brightly, still playing and encouraging Camerupt on. I didn't recognize the song she was playing, but didn't bother to question it.

Something occurred to me as I watched Tyranitar attempt to fight off the other three pokemon while shooting glares at Billy. "Hey bro. This is kind of like what happens when a ranger captures our pokemon, except instead of releasing a calm pokemon, it released an enraged one. Since it's clearly not under anyone's control right now, I think if you try capturing it again it might work."

"Hmm, nicely spotted bro. Worth a shot, I guess." Billy again started playing the song he used to capture Tyranitar, who flailed madly against the circling disk. Thankfully, Tyranitar wasn't as fast or as strong as Charizard had been, and Billy was easily able to avoid being hit. Pretty soon the capture was again completed, and this time Tyranitar fell completely under Billy's control. "Excellent, success. And with nothing horribly broken too."

"I don't know about broken," I said to Billy, who seemed relatively unfazed by the previous event, "but my styler's definitely very damaged." I examined the styler I had embedded into my guitar, and noticed that the backlash from Billy's capture had forced much of the wiring to stick out rather unattractively. "That's distasteful. Perhaps we can postpone this rehearsal until I fix this up? I can give Clyde's a look while I'm at it."

Billy sighed. "So picky, little bro. Just so picky. Fine, we'll give you a couple hours to fix up the two stylers. Meet back here at around two, okay?" We all nodded, and Clyde handed me his styler. I decided I'd fix his up first, so that he could recapture Slaking and I could fix up all the damage caused by both his and Billy's captures in one go. He seemed fine with this plan, and told me he'd be waiting in his room.

A couple hours later we had again reconvened outside (Clyde's recapture of Slaking having gone much smoother than Billy's had). Rehearsal ended up being an average one, with Billy and I doing most of the real work and Clyde and Tiffany just slacking off. About half an hour into practice Billy's cell phone went off and Father told him that the new base had been deemed 'passable' and that we were to join him there as soon as possible.

"Ooooh, good thing I packed all my stuff!" Tiffany squeaked when Billy relayed this message.

"I'll help you carry it," Clyde said happily, and the two of them started to go back inside. I looked at Billy. Billy looked at me. We smiled.

Clyde and Tiffany stopped dead in their tracks, finding their way blocked by Tyranitar and Scizor.

"Ah-ah-ah," Billy said, waving a finger at them.

"Rehearsal," I said, strumming lightly on my guitar, "is nowhere near over yet, kids." Clyde and Tiffany were not impressed.

We played for another hour or so, but didn't end up getting much done, thanks to Clyde and Tiffany's increasingly cranky moods. We ended the session with our little intro song, since Billy apparently needed to practice whipping his guitar out without whacking Clyde in the head with it. I had noticed before the incident in the Jungle Relic that Billy's guitar often whizzed by Clyde's ear when Billy was taking it out. I decided against saying anything in the hopes that Clyde would someday be knocked out when Billy enthusiastically whipped out his guitar. And, while I did think that Billy whacking Clyde in the head had been pretty funny, I knew better than to express it. Billy had been pretty pissed about that.

We finished our introduction song, and Billy announced that today's rehearsal was done.

"Finally." Clyde huffed. "Rehearsal is just getting more and more lame."

I felt my irritation with my brother spike, as it usually did when he expressed his inherent laziness. "Have you ever considered the fact that it may be that very attitude that led to your downfall against that ranger? If you actually practised a little harder, you likely wouldn't have embarrassed us the way you did." I knew that referring to his loss was probably a soft spot, but I was tired by this point. I didn't care.

"Excuse me?" He snapped, turning on me. "What did you just say?"

"I said that if you actually exerted yourself once in a while, you might not have lost to some low rank Union ranger," I told him, standing a little straighter and using my height to look down on him. I knew how much he hated that.

"You weren't there, you bastard." He snarled, getting much angrier than I would have expected. "She's not as useless as she looks."

I think Billy was about to break us up then, like he usually did, but something seemed to catch his eye on the overpass behind us.

"Well you obviously are." I continued

"I am what?"

I couldn't believe he didn't get that. I raised an eyebrow at him and elaborated. "As useless as you look."

Clyde's face was beat red now, and he got right in my face to yell. "You're a goddamn arrogant prick, you know that? Were you there? Huh? Do you know what she can do?"

"Did I hit a nerve, little bro?" I asked him with a bit of a sneer. I was unfazed by his anger; it was directed at me often enough anyway.

"Billy, aren't you going to do something about them?" Tiffany interjected impatiently, motioning towards us. I looked over at Billy, and noticed that he seemed completely distracted by something that was happening on the overpass behind us. I looked up at it, but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I looked back at Billy, about to ask what he was looking at, when he quickly darted sideways, apparently trying to get a better angle at whatever he was observing.

I again looked up at the overpass, and moved to the side like Billy had. I caught the briefest glimpse of something red before the door leading out onto the ramp slammed shut. I looked at Billy, about to say something about it, but he just held his hand up to me, palm out, motioning for me not to say anything. Tiffany and Clyde both looked confused and frustrated.

"Whatever." Tiffany impatiently swished her hair back. "Let's just hurry up and get out of this dirty place. You know, if we leave now we'll have time to do some shopping in Fall City."

"Now, now, we have other things to do Tiffany. Quit being so self-centred," Billy said as we both walked back over to where we had been practising. "Not another word from you." Billy snapped at Clyde, who looked like he was about to continue our argument. He fell into a sullen silence. "Clyde, Tiffany, get your stuff. The three of us are going to join Father up in the new headquarters. Garret, I want you to stay and look after the factory for a bit." He threw a meaningful look at the overpass. "And throw out any trash that has made its way in."

"Sure thing, Billy," I said, running a finger up my guitar to show that I understood. "No problem."

"The production of the Super Stylers is almost completed, so pack your stuff and be ready to move out once it's done. We'll probably see you tomorrow night, at the latest."

I nodded, and we went inside. The three of them left to go to their respective rooms, while I said that I was going to check out the east wing, since I'd never been down there. As I left I heard Tiffany's voice saying, "Why does Garret have to stay here anyway? Isn't the factory, like, self-sufficient?" I smiled and continued on my way.

The east wing was fairly unremarkable- I hadn't been missing much in avoiding it. There were a lot of greasy machines, some of which were churning out Super Stylers while listless grunts checked them and added pieces on when needed. Past one of the machines there was a door, which apparently led to a generator room. I saw a door at the other end, and assumed that this was one of the holding rooms the grunt had mentioned earlier. I figured this would be a good time to check the pokemon the grunts had been collecting and to see if they had caught anything good. I doubted they had, but it was worth a shot.

When I was about halfway through the room, however, I heard something squeak pitifully. I looked around, confused. Whatever it was made the sound again, for a longer duration, and I grew more concerned. For some reason, it sounded like there was a child somewhere in the room.

I followed the noise and eventually found a cage that came up to around my waist. I knelt down to check what was inside it, still confused. Inside the cage there was a pikachu; it had multiple cords attached to it, with the two biggest ones being what appeared to be IV's stuck into the pikachu's electric cheek pouches. Its fur was coming out in clumps, and it looked like no one had bothered to feed it for a while. I would have thought that it was dead had it not been twitching pathetically as it lay slumped on the floor of the cage. As I watched the generator made a whirring noise and pikachu's cheeks began to spark as the machine stole its electricity. I realized that it was indeed the pikachu making the wailing noise, though it would be clear to anyone how I could get it confused with a child. The cry that was coming out of the pikachu just sounded so remarkably human.

I reeled back, nauseated. This was what was powered the machinery, and probably the rest of the factory too. No wonder we never got a hydro bill. The irrational voice in my head was screaming at me.

_You see! This is wrong. The pokemon is being _tortured _for Mew's sake! There are probably lots more, and you've been helping to torture all of them. You're a part of this._

I couldn't quiet the voice this time, couldn't quell its rantings. So I ran from the room as quickly as I could, coming out into the 'holding' room. I had my eyes squeezed shut, not knowing what I could expect to see when I opened them. My mind assaulted me with a mass of images of what could potentially be there, none of which were very pleasant. None of which that I would wish upon my worst enemy, let alone some stupid wild pokemon. Nothing deserved that amount of pain.

I eventually managed to open my eyes, and sighed with relief. There were no twitching pokemon in here, no one having their power drained or being held down with wires cutting into them, like I had imagined. I clenched my fists to stop their shaking, and forced myself to look at every pokemon there.

Most of them were pretty much useless- there were lots of sneasals and meowths and seedots. But held in one of the side cages, glaring at me through triangular eyes, was a larger-than-normal scyther. I slowly walked over to it- my legs were still shaking, but I tried not to let it show- and peered into his cage. As I looked he apparently became enraged and rushed at the bars, slashing them with all his might and as fast as he could. I noted, with mild concern, that he was in fact able to damage the thick steel bars that held him in.

I didn't think he'd be able to break out, but it was best to play it safe. And besides, he would compliment Scizor nicely. It would also be an excellent way to prove that I was not 'going soft' like Billy thought I was. So, trying to steady my shaking hands, I started to play.

It was all too easy to avoid being hit with Scyther's blades, and the bug was captured in seconds. He held stock still, and I went over to find the release button for his cage. It was fairly easy to locate- there was a big green button that said 'open' on it- and soon Scyther was standing in front of me, ready for an order. I told him to go join Scizor, wherever he was. The bug darted off, and I was left alone with the accusatory glares from the other pokemon.

No... they weren't accusing. They were just pokemon. My run in with pikachu left me feeling sorry for them, and I was attaching human emotions to them in my sympathy. What we were doing to the pikachu was excessive, and I would talk with Father about it. But I had to stop this nonsense of feeling sorry for captured pokemon. It made no difference to them. They didn't have human feelings.

I walked as quickly as I could through the generator room without actually running and began to make my way back to my room. I knew I'd have to orchestrate some kind of search to check for the possible intruder that Billy and I saw on the overpass, but I had to pull myself together first. I wasn't going to face the grunts and possibly rangers until I had myself under control.

I went to my bathroom and looked in the mirror, noticing that I looked like complete and utter crap. I was pale and my eyes were rimmed with red. That was embarrassing. I splashed my face with cold water and slapped my cheeks until the red disappeared from my eyes and started to appear in my face. Then I leaned against the sink and took a few deep breaths, trying to shove the image of the twitching pikachu out of my head. I would think about it later, when I absolutely had to.

The process took a while, and when I was done I went to splash myself with water one more time before I wiped it off my face. I twisted the cold water tap and... nothing. That was odd. I tried to flick on the light, and again nothing happened. It occurred to me that if the generators began to stop working the first thing that would have the power cut off was the personal faculties, like the sink and the main lights. The power produced by the backup generators would be sent to the energy-saving lights and, of course, the machinery. Those were the priorities. I only hoped that the toilets still worked.

I knew then that I had left it too long and promptly sent out a mass message to all the grunt's stylers. I informed them that all the grunts residing in the Dusk Factory were to be on alert for any possible sightings of rangers. I had specific units cluster around the generators that had not yet been destroyed and informed them that it was likely the ranger or rangers would target them next. The grunts that worked the factory line were to remain in position and produce as many stylers as possible, just in case. I set off on my own search of the factory with Scizor and Scyther flanking me.

I had been sufficiently distracted from the plight of the pikachu and was focusing solely on finding the ranger and defeating them. I was eager to prove myself superior to Clyde in yet another way and was not about to confirm Billy's doubts in me. I was ready for a battle.

My siblings had left a while ago, but I got a text message from Billy asking what was going on. There was no way for me to stop my message to the grunts from going out to all of them, and so he must have heard from one of the ones accompanying them about what I had sent. I told him that a generator had gone out, and I was on the tail of the ranger who did it. The second part may have been embellished, but it didn't matter. I would find them. Billy responded to my text back within a minute.

_Father says we have enough stylers to get along if something happens. Don't let that ranger go unpunished. Show the Union we're not kidding around. Keep us posted._

That was easily done, and I informed him as such. Though I was irritated to realize that the lights on the second floor had gone out as well. That meant two generators were down.

_It also means two pikachus are free_, I reminded myself. I took a calming breath, and continued to the third floor, where the lights were still on. I let Billy know these things over text.

I searched the floor for about ten minutes, questioning grunts on what they had seen. One of the higher ranking ones told me that not only was Professor Hastings himself here, but he and Lunick had unwittingly hit the emergency call button on the third floor, thinking it was some sort of power button.

_And these sorry losers are our arch enemies_, I thought to myself, feeling somewhat insulted. I thanked the grunt for his information. I knew I had to check the generator room on that floor, though I consoled myself by thinking that I didn't have to go right in, I didn't have to go look at what was powering that generator. Feeling somewhat nervous, I stole my courage and made my way to the generator room.

However, halfway there the lights on that floor went out. I had searched every room! How on earth had that ranger and the unwitting professor escaped my notice? Truly peeved now, I stopped and waited in the room I was in, knowing that they would have to come through there if they wanted to leave.

Sure enough, within minutes I heard the voice of Lunick and another man whom I assumed to be Professor Hastings. They sounded pretty pleased with themselves, and Hastings was congratulating Lunick on a well-executed mission. That annoyed me, and I took action as soon as I saw them round the corner.

"Professor, look out!" Lunick promptly grabbed Hastings and yanked him out of the way of the two charging pokemon. I allowed myself a humble grin.

"Why, hello there- Lunick, was it? I believe you know me as Garret, and as a member of the Go Rock Quads I am pleased to welcome you to our Dusk Factory. I see you've already made yourself quite at home. Though perhaps you might want to consider how your actions may in fact be wearing out your welcome."

"You were using pokemon against their will to power the factory!" Lunick snapped at me. "How could you be so cruel?" I discarded this last sentence, knowing that I was in fact not the cruel one. I did take notice of how Lunick seemed to have a black eye and a split lip, along with a fair few bruises on his arms. I assumed these were left over injuries from his fight with Clyde.

"Garret... Garret... where have I heard that name before?" Hastings muttered to himself, seeming not to care much about the situation he was in. I ignored him as well.

"Funny, I expected that if the Union was going to send rangers out here, they'd have sent more than one. Though I suppose your Solana friend is still too injured to go out on such a mission?" While I disagreed with what Clyde did, his assault of Solana was a quick and easy way to get a rise out of that Lunick character.

"That was a dirty trick you pulled! Clyde is at least twice Solana's size, and she had just finished capturing that slaking!"

"I wasn't the one who pulled that 'trick,' to use your term. It was my brother. But I digress- conversation with you is less than scintillating, so shall we skip ahead to the main event?" I started plucking out a tune on my guitar, singing the first song that came to mind. "Scyther, Scizor, take one each."

"Crap, Professor!" Lunick called out to Hastings as the old man was pinned against the wall by Scyther's blades. I hadn't ordered Scyther to actually harm him though, so he just kept Hastings pinned while Lunick leaped and dodged as best as he could, trying to avoid Scizor's lightening fast speed and his honed claws. Lunick couldn't even draw one loop around him before he leaped out of it or broke the line. I smiled, and started singing.

"_In the depths of my mind I laid sleeping_

_Well, I had such a dream when I woke I was weeping_

_The vision I saw danced around me_

_And my heart saw the things that my eyes couldn't see_"

"Crap!" Scizor again managed to cut Lunick's capture line, and the styler was already making panicked noises. "magneton, I need your help." magneton recharged Lunick's dying styler, but I wasn't perturbed. Recharging the styler would not improve his skill.

"_Oh, the sun crashed down to the ground_

_The moon rose up to the sky, blood red_

_All the dead climbed up out from their graves_

_They fell to their knees as the stars started screaming..._"

"Professor, are you okay?" Lunick called, interrupting my singing. I was vaguely irritated with this- the boy was nearly as obnoxious as Clyde. Scizor had almost broken his styler by this point, but low and behold, the kid had another magneton.

"I'm just fine, dear boy! Focus on your capture," Hastings called back. Well, at least one of them could see how this was going to turn out for poor Lunick.

"_Come one, come all, come see and believe it_

_The truth will shine of you open your eyes_

_And you'll see it move as it moves on the masses_

_The weak will rise and give birth to the sky!_"

I was smiling so wide it almost hurt by this point. Lunick's styler was again making panicked-sounding beeps, and I could see he had no more magneton to bail him out. I felt the same power rush I had felt the first time I exercised my control over a pokemon. I was in control of this situation, and no matter how much Lunick struggled he wasn't going to be able to change that.

"_No it didn't stop there it consumed me_

_And it crushed me with joy as its beauty swept through me_

_I was moved by the weight of it all_

_I've been touched by the light, yes I know what I saw_

_Come one, come all, come see and believe it..._"

I continued singing over top of Lunick's yells to his partner, who was his only remaining pokemon, as he tried to marshal up enough of a pokeassist as to halt Scizor long enough for capturing. It wasn't going well. This battle was just about mine- and I knew exactly what I would do when I won.

"_I saw the dreamers dreaming, I heard the people singing_

_The dinosaur's are dying, the mind control's subsiding_

_I saw a new path leading, free thinkers freely thinking_

_Can't stop a though from breathing, it moves like fire..._"

It was a shame Lunick wasn't listening to my song- it might have given him a taste of what our organization was really about. Hastings seemed to be listening though, and his brow was furrowed as he took in my words.

Lunick made one more desperate attempt to capture Scizor, drawing a wide, erratic line around the speeding bug. Scizor threw out one claw and- _psssst! Crack!_- Lunick's styler was broken. It even had some appropriately dramatic smoke issuing out of it. It was time to wrap up my song.

"_Come one, come all, come see and believe it_

_The truth will shine if you open your eyes_

_And you'll see it move as it moves on the masses_

_The weak will rise and give birth to the sky_

_Hey, give birth to the sky..._"

"Crap! You- what do you want?" Lunick demanded of me as Scizor slammed him into the wall. I strummed a little bit more, happy with the way this was going.

"First of all, I would like to applaud you on your outstandingly swift crippling of the Dusk Factory. You were very efficient- I might even consider you a worthy candidate for the Go Rock Squad." Neither Lunick nor Hastings said anything to this, so I continued. "As I'm sure you know, this factory has been producing Super Stylers en mass. However, our real focus is on the production of the Power Styler- you of course remember the captured Entei?"

"...Yes." Lunick replied slowly, trying to see what I was leading to.

"Well, that was a mere prototype of what the real Power Styler will be. There won't be a pokemon alive that will be able to resist its power, hence its name. Now, our plan as it is right now is to use these pokemon to cripple the Union and give the Go Rock Squad the power that we have earned. As you can imagine, the chances of multiple rangers being severely injured is quite high in this situation. However, I have a deal for you." I turned to Hastings at this point, and he huffed through his moustache as he looked over Scyther's shoulder. "If the Union steps down now, and hand their power and funds to the Go Rock Squad, not a single ranger need be hurt."

Hastings- arrogant old fool- actually _laughed _at this. "You think the Union will bow to such demands from a low-life criminal such as yourself? I think you ought to let out some of that hot air of yours- it's clearly inflated your head!"

I huffed. "Very well. But know this- thanks to your dissent, the Go Rock Squad will have no reason to show any mercy to any ranger we happen across. Any and all injuries acquired by your own people can be at least partially blamed on yourself." Hastings paled slightly at this, which pleased me. "Now, on to our next order of business. You may be rather pleased with yourself for shutting down this factory, but I can assure you that we have more than enough stylers for the time being. Any celebration on your part is extremely premature. However, it was quite the inconvenience when many of our machines inexplicably stopped working. I was, as I'm sure you can imagine, rather puzzled as to how this strange event came to pass. That is, until I found you two lost Union workers. You've made quite the irritant of yourself, and I would like you to apologize for your abysmal behaviour."

"A-apologize? To you?" Lunick sputtered, seeming taken aback. I turned to him.

"Yes, a-pol-o-gize," I said slowly, sounding it out in the way one might to a five-year-old. "It means you have to say you're sorry."

"You snobby jerk!" That was the second time I was called arrogant that day. I decided to write it off as a coincidence.

"That's not much of an apology. You'll have to do better than that. Keep in mind that you aren't leaving until I hear you say you're sorry." I plucked a slightly higher note on my guitar, and both Scizor and Scyther tightened their grip on the men. Lunick winced as Scizor's claws began to cut into him.

"Lunick, as frustrated as you might be, it's best to just play along. We need to get back to the base, and the sooner we get out of here the better." Hastings leaned over Scyther's shoulder as best as he could to speak to me. "Garret, I am sorry for destroying your generators. I would be delighted if you would forgive us and allow us safe leave."

"Why, thank you, good professor." I turned away from him, towards Lunick. "That's one. Don't you think you ought to add yours in?"

He glared at me and said, rather insincerely, "I'm sorry."

"Hmm, not as articulate as the professor's, but I suppose it will do. Scizor? Scyther? See these two outside, and ensure that they are well off the premises before you return." Scyther scooped his blades under Hastings armpits and whisked him off towards the exit. Scizor simply clamped Lunick tight enough to keep the boy with him before dashing after Scyther.

And then they were gone. I was almost sorry to see them go- it had been more fun than I expected playing with them. Perhaps it was because it was not just a common pokemon I was controlling, but other humans. I was practically giggling to myself as I sent Billy a long text explaining what happened. He answered back fairly quickly, congratulating me and promising a celebratory party of some sort. He then informed me that there was no reason for me to remain in the factory, and I was to join them in our new base. He gave me the directions, and I was slightly put out to find that our base was located in the Sekra Plains. That meant it was as far north as it was possible to be in Fiore. Which, of course, meant it would be cold. Oh well- I was sure the new base would have a good furnace.

I all but skipped down the halls to collect my stuff, happy that I didn't have to spend much time here alone after all. Time spent with the grunts was sure to lead to a double digit IQ after too long. Scyther and Scizor joined me after I was nearly done packing my stuff, and I told them to make sure to follow me on my way up to Sekra, but to stay hidden. They whisked off, and I wondered if I should have congratulated them somehow for their besting of Lunick and Hastings. Oh well- I doubted they even knew what had happened.

I took my stuff and left for Fall City, planning on catching a bus up to Wintown- which was directly below Sekra Plains- and then working my way up to the new base...somehow. I could easily hitch a ride on Scizor, but something about clinging to the pokemon as it dragged me through the sky lacked a certain style. I would figure it out when I got there.

The bus ride was slightly long, but pleasant. The scenery was beautiful, deciduous trees slowly giving way to coniferous ones, and becoming more and more snow covered. This also had the added effect of making the trees look like they were slowly beginning to glow as night descended and the pure whiteness of the snow reflected the lights of the bus.

Night had completely fallen by the time I reached Wintown, and I considered staying in a hotel and finishing up the journey the next morning. But based on the directions Billy had given me it would only take another hour and a half to reach the base, on foot and I was eager to be with my siblings again. So I walked to the edge of Wintown and considered how I would proceed.

It wasn't a bad night out. Yes, it was a little chilly, but tonight was not a night for one of the deep freezes that Wintown was known for. The sky was insulated with clouds, and bits of snow were serenely drifting to the ground, falling both from the sky and from the roofs and trees surrounding me. Riding with Scizor would take me half an hour to get to the base, but I felt a strange urge to make the journey on foot. So I started crunching through the snow towards my destination.

It was a quiet night. Not silent, but very quiet. I could hear vulpix rustling through the overgrowth, hoothoot calling to each other over treetops, and catch the occasional glimpse of Scizor or Scyther darting around me. There were tangela dotted here and there, sleeping in treetops among the bird pokemon. I started humming to myself as I took in the views around me.

I had been walking for about twenty minutes when I heard a slight whirring sound. I glanced around, confused. It had sounded an awful lot like the sound of a capture disk being sent out. But there was no one around me, and I couldn't see the telltale blue light of a capture line. I decided it was probably just a wild pokemon, somehow, and continued on my way, feeling ill at ease.

I had the feeling I was being watched, and though I knew the real reason for this (humans are designed to feel jumpy when they're on their own, and the instincts go into high drive because of this) I still summoned Scyther and Scizor to my side after a few minutes of this.

That was, apparently, a mistake. Something crashed into me from behind and knocked me into the snow. I rolled over, and the first thing I saw was a rather tall man, wearing a Wintown ranger uniform and a scowl. He had close cut brown hair, similar to a military buzz cut, and muscles to spare. I recognized him as Chris Edwards, the high profile Wintown ranger that Billy and I had come across in our research early on. The one with multiple legendary captures to attribute to his name. The one who had a bit of a reputation for being more violent than a ranger ought to be.

He jutted his chin towards Scyther, who, along with Scizor, was standing stock still, awaiting an order from me. I couldn't help but see this as a bit of a flaw- if I was unable to give orders, the pokemon under my control would not act to protect me. I looked at Scyther, and looked back to him, confused.

"My partner." He grunted, still glaring down at me.

"Really?" I said, again looking at Scyther. This wasn't good. "Shit."

I had the most extensive vocabulary in our family. More than Father, who knew a few good interesting words and simply used the same ones a lot. More than Billy, who was quite adept at bending words to his advantage anyway. I had countless words from countless books internalized in my being. My head swam with words from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to bed, and even then pursued me most of the way through dreaming. And yet the only word that made itself readily available to me was 'shit'.

I was trying to think of better words to encourage this Chris character to leave when his boot connected with my face. Hard. I was knocked on my back, but quickly stumbled into standing position, touching my chin where he had kicked me.

"Shit," I said again, and spat out some blood that had gathered in my mouth. I wasn't sure whether it came from my gum where I thought a tooth might have been knocked loose or my tongue, which I had bit when he kicked me.

I ducked out of the way as he swung a fist at me and stumbled backwards, trying to get my guitar off my back and order Scizor and Scyther to protect me. I was fumbling with the strap when Chris caught me in a headlock. His fist slammed into my face and I struggled in vain, trying to free myself from his painful hold.

Star-bursts of pain erupted on my face as his fist pummelled into me again and again. I was quite positive he was trying to kill me, and that my family would come looking for me only to find most of my body with a bloody mess where my face had been. Or maybe he would take the head home as a trophy. That also seemed likely.

Finally, he seemed to get sick of this particular position. Maybe my face was bruising his fist. Or maybe he just felt like a change. I didn't know. I didn't really care either. I just knew that I had been thrown to the ground, and ranger Chris was on top of me, pinning me down, his one massive hand at my throat.

I was not a fighter. I had never been physically confronted by anyone I angered, mostly due to my ability to talk myself out of it. Clyde was the fighter in the family. Whenever we went out to parties or concerts (or on missions, for that matter) it was always Clyde that had to be dragged away from some poor bloody pulp that had been his opponent. His motivation seemed to run from defending Tiffany from over-aggressive guys, to drunkards looking for a fight, to sheer boredom. He was a good fighter too, I would give him that. I was certain that if he was here he'd be able to give ranger Chris a run for his money. But he wasn't here. I was the only one here. And I couldn't fight. I was _terrified_.

"Let him go!" He roared in my face. I winced at the sound, and at its implications. Especially since I knew what my answer had to be.

"I-I can't! There's no... I can't!" I stammered, through the blood in my mouth and a split lip. Chris Edwards did not like this. I felt an explosion of pain, this time in my groin. I howled and tried to dislodge the knee that was jammed there. The hand at my throat tightened, and I became quite positive that he meant to kill me. Somewhere in my mind I knew he would lose his job if he did, but it wasn't any consolation. I guess Scyther meant a lot to Chris Edwards. I wondered vaguely what would happen to the pokemon under my control if I died, but the styler remained intact.

Chris either didn't know, or had forgotten, that my styler was actually my guitar though. Because in his next move he got up, grabbed the strap of my guitar and threw me into a snow bank, which provided a thankfully soft landing. However, the move also twisted the guitar around just enough for me to grab it and play a few desperate notes.

Scizor and Scyther sprang into action, first blocking Chris's advance and then coming to my side. I was dizzy, and quite sure that I would pass out soon, but I managed to grab on to Scyther's leg, which was the only thing in my line of vision. A few more notes and I took my hand off my guitar to grab Scizor's leg as well, and we flew off towards the base, leaving Chris behind.

In another ten minutes I was in front of the base's hidden entrance. I stumbled around, searched for the entrance button that I knew was there. Gave up, and sent a quick, somewhat inarticulate message to Billy.

_At the frons dor. About to pas out._

Thank Arceus for technology. I hit send. Then I passed out.

* * *

**A/N: Accidentally called the Power Styler a Super Styler for a long time there. Derp. I'll go back and fix it later. For those who haven't played the first ranger game, the Power Styler is what Gordor has been working on, that can control any pokemon (as Garret mentioned). The Super Styler is a replica of the thinger that Hastings made, but...evil-ized. It doesn't need feelings of friendship to work, anyway.**

**Long chapter, holy crap. And I cut out at least a page during the editing process.**

**The song Garret sang was 'Soil to the Sun' by Cage the Elephant.**

**Review...?**


	10. Side of a Bullet

**Billy's POV**

I was sitting in the new rec room, relaxing with my siblings after the day of travel and excitement as we listened to Garret's adventure over text. The kid had done well, I'd certainly give him that. I wasn't about to put aside my suspicions that he was getting cold feet, but I rather thought our little talk gave him a need to prove himself. Which he had done quite well.

My phone vibrated again, and I looked down to see that Garret had sent another text. It was getting late, so I assumed he was letting us know he would be bunking down somewhere for the night, and joining us tomorrow. I didn't assume correctly.

_At the frons dor. About to pas out._

It took me a second to really process this. And even once I had, my only thought was an unhelpful _huh_? When did Garret get so illiterate? It took me another second to grasp the implications of the text. But once I did I practically leaped out of the chair and rushed out of the room, yelling "something's happened to Garret," over my shoulder as explanation to my siblings.

I didn't know what the hell could have happened to him, but he'd have to have been pretty out of it to send that horrid of a text. My mind flipped through possibilities as I ran and vaguely registered that my siblings were following me. It couldn't have happened at the factory, Garret had texted saying that everything had gone right near perfectly. He would have arrived in Wintown by now, so whatever happened was between there and our base. The most likely thing I could think of was a wild pokemon. But he had Scizor to help him, not to mention that dandy little scyther he found in the base.

It took us a few minutes to weave through the base towards the elevator that lifted us to the entrance. The elevator ride was infuriatingly slow, and I couldn't help but fidget on the way up.

"Billy," Tiffany said hesitantly. "What's-"

"I don't know," I snapped at her. "Garret texted me. He's outside, something's really wrong."

Finally, after what I considered to be the longest elevator ride in history, the doors slid open and we stepped outside. At first I didn't see anything, but then I noticed the large red form of Scizor standing off to my right.

The entrance to our base was located on a cliff edge, using a large fake boulder to hide the entrance. The boulder looked very convincing, and was definitely heavy enough to pass as a real boulder. But its weight came from the layer of cement underneath the rough boulder-like exterior, which protected the wiring inside from damage. There was a secret switch on the side which, when pressed, revealed the sliding doors to the elevator. The place our boulder was hidden on was extremely high up, and extremely difficult to get to. In fact, it was impossible to do unless you were either an expert mountain climber or had a small flying pokemon strong enough to help you get there. It was at least a hundred foot drop at the edge of the cliff, and you could see the rushing water of a river below you.

I walked over to where Scizor was and peered around him. Garret was passed out dangerously close to the edge. My stomach jolted when I looked at him- even in the dark, I could see he was not in good shape. His face was turned towards me, and I could see it was absolutely covered in blood. I couldn't even tell if it was from a cut somewhere on his face or the product of multiple small wounds. Hell, I couldn't even see his face. But my eyes didn't linger on that for long- I quickly noticed that he was lying on his back, and one arm was actually hanging over the edge. I felt a rush of fear as I imagined something knocking into him and pushing him off the ledge. I had to get him away from there.

"Move!" I snarled at Scizor, who was taking up most of the space on the ledge between me and Garret. There would have been more than enough room for me to simply walk over to Garret and pull him a few feet away from the edge, had his Scizor not been occupying all but three feet of the path. But, of course, I was not Scizor's master. Garret was, and it was only his styler that Scizor would listen to. So the giant bug simply stayed where it was, forcing me to edge around him, taking me closer to the drop than I would have liked.

"Billy, what the hell is going on?" Tiffany practically yelled at me as she saw me go around Scizor. She sounded, understandably, very frustrated and scared.

"Still have no idea, but Garret's really hurt. Go to the scientists; get a gurney out here or something. Do we even have a medical ward?"

"I-I don't know, but I'll go check," Tiffany said, and I heard her go back inside.

"Bro, what's wrong with him?" Clyde spoke up for the first time, trying to peer around Scizor. I was knelt over Garret, trying to figure out the best way to get him away from the edge. Did he have a back injury?

"_I don't know_! How many times to I have to say it? His face is all bloody and shit." I realized my voice was shaking, and I could have slapped myself. I was supposed to be the leader here, I couldn't be freaking out like this. But I was scared, damn it. Garret wasn't moving at all, and it looked like he was barely breathing. Though I might have been imagining that. "Come here. Help me move him away from the edge."

The two of us gently carried him closer to the boulder, away from the edge. After some discussion, we also carefully moved him around Scizor to the front of the entrance to wait for whatever help Tiffany would get. As we put him down he let out a small groan and his eyes seemed to try and open. I used my sleeve to wipe some of the blood away from them so he could see. In the dark, and with the contrasting red all over his face, his eyes seemed almost unnaturally blue.

"Garret," I said. "Garret, little bro. What happened?" He looked up at me, and seemed to focus on my face. I don't think he really heard what I said though, considering his response.

"My crotch hurts," he said shortly, before passing out again. Clyde and I were silent for a second.

"That only adds more questions..." I grunted to myself.

"What the hell happened to him?" Clyde asked again, at a whisper. Thankfully, he seemed to be more asking himself than me. I didn't want to say I didn't know again.

A few minutes later the doors whizzed open and Tiffany came out, followed by Father and a few of his scientists. They seemed to be carrying a long board with them, which I assumed would act as a gurney. I guess we didn't have a medical ward.

Father bent down and examined Garret. I looked closely at his face, knowing what I would see but loathing him for it anyway. There was no sign of concern, or fear. Just detachment and a vague sense of disapproval, like Garret had done something wrong.

I hated him. I hated his lack of affection, the way he treated us like we didn't matter. Hated that he always made it so clear how much he didn't care about us. Hated knowing the effect this would have on my siblings if they ever realized the extent of his disinterest. Hated the look on his face, hated the way we all looked more like him than mom. I have never, _never_, hated anyone more than I hated Father in that moment.

"Take him to one of the spare bedrooms. Clean him up and give him an examination. Administer any needed care and return to your workstations," he told the men behind him, who nodded and went to work getting Garret on their makeshift gurney. He turned to me and seemed to note what must have been a murderous expression on my face, but didn't comment on it. "What happened?" He asked.

_Well, you see Father, you got this dumb shit idea to start this illegal organization and thought it'd be a good idea to drag your kids into it. Then somewhere along the line, someone decided to play a tune on your son's face. That should probably upset you. But it clearly doesn't;_ was what I thought. What I said was, "No idea."

Father just grunted, and turned to get on the elevator. I fought the urge to throw rocks at him, to scream accusations at him. But Clyde and Tiffany were there, so I held it in. Likely not good for my health, but I'd be damned if I was going to lose that much control in front of them.

"Shouldn't we follow them?" Tiffany said quietly as the elevator doors started to close.

"No room on the elevator," I said shortly. "We'll grab the next one." Scizor seemed to come alive then, for he looked around and, noticing that Garret was nowhere to be seen, flew off to go hide somewhere. I noticed a green blur fly after it from behind the boulder, and assumed that it was Scyther. Garret had obviously given them orders to hide when he wasn't around and didn't need them.

The elevator ride back down wasn't quite as long as the one going up, but still seemed infuriatingly slow. We came out at the bottom of the lift, and realized that no one had been too clear on where the room was that Garret was being taken to. Impatiently, I paged Father and he gave us directions. The three of us quickly made our way to where Garret was taken, and found the two scientists that had accompanied Father carefully placing him on a bed. Father himself was nowhere to be seen.

"What's wrong with him?" I asked, going over to his bed. Having put Garret in place, one of the scientists started to unlatch the strap on his guitar to take it off.

"I don't know yet," said the one that was busying himself trying to clean up Garret's face. "I haven't gotten a chance to examine him." He said this with the air of someone who knows he's talking to his superior, but thinks his superior is a moron.

"Where'd my father go?" I asked, already disliking the man. The other had finished removing the guitar and leaned it against the wall. He helped the first to clean Garret up.

"Your father has more important things to do." He sniffed.

"More important than ensuring his son isn't going to spend the rest of his life playing with colouring books?" I snapped, already pushed to my limit with the guy. He looked like he was going to say something snarky back, but the second scientist interjected before he got the chance.

"I doubt your brother is going to have that severe of a brain injury," he said. "It's possible he has a mild to moderate concussion, though. A concussion is non-life threatening, and will heal itself with rest over time. I assume you three will be able to keep an eye on him?" The three of us nodded. "Then he'll be fine."

I was grateful for the bit of information, and gave him a curt nod. The bedroom we were in had two double beds, and my siblings and I sat down on the one across from Garret and the scientists, our backs against the wall. They had brought a laptop with them, and were doing some kind of weird scan thingy over his head. This bothered me- they had finished cleaning him up, and I wanted to see what he looked like.

"What are you doing?" I asked, not caring that I was likely bothering them.

"Doing a brain scan with your father's clever little computer. He could make quite a hefty amount of money in the medical industry selling laptops that can perform brain scans." It was the second scientist again, and he seemed to be trying to lighten the tension. It didn't work, and after an uncomfortable silence, he continued. "We're checking for brain swelling and bleeding." I nodded again.

A few minutes later Garret regained consciousness again. The two scientists didn't seem to notice- they were both engrossed in their brain scan pictures. Garret looked dozily around the room, seeming confused. I finally got a good look at his face, and he didn't look good. There were bruises already forming all over his face, mostly on his cheekbones, jaw and around his eyes. His nose appeared to be broken, and was still bleeding somewhat. This bothered me- I knew how dignified Garret always liked to be, and I knew how much he would hate to be seen with blood and mucus running down his face like that. I kept looking, and noticed another bruise that seemed to wrap around the base of his neck.

"Little bro. What-" I didn't get to finish my question though, for Garret promptly leaned over the side of the bed and vomited. This got the attention of the two scientists, and the first one quickly procured what appeared to be a small garbage can for Garret to puke into. I again felt a pang of sympathy for Garret's loss of dignity.

He puked a few more times, then again looked up and seemed to find us in the room. "Billy," he said, "Clyde...Tiff. Where am I?"

"In a spare bedroom in our new base." I answered him. His brow furrowed, and it seemed to take him a second to understand what I meant. "We found you passed out outside, and covered in blood. You said something about your crotch hurting. What happened to you?"

The two scientists seemed to be paying particular attention to Garret's answer, and he took a while deliberating over it. "I...can't quite remember. It's all a blur."

"What's the last memory you have?" The first scientist asked. Garret again spent a long time thinking about his answer.

"I...I was on the path leading out of Wintown...I can't remember why..."

"We told you to come join us at the new base, which is outside of Wintown." I prompted him, hoping this would help him along. He just looked at me.

"I don't remember that. I remember what happened at the Dusk Factory," he said hopefully. I just shook my head.

"That was a while before this happened."

"Oh. Well...I was on the path. And it was kind of cold, but not too cold to avoid walking. I...I think it was rather nice out actually. I wanted to enjoy the sights."

"That's good," the second scientist said. "What else do you remember?"

"Scizor and Scyther were with me...it had something to do with Scyther. There was a man...he was extremely angered. I don't remember anything else though. I'm sorry."

_Something to do with Scyther..._ I began putting my brain to work, trying to figure out what happened to Garret in the back of my mind. "Why can't he remember what happened?" I demanded of the scientists.

"It's a common symptom for a moderate concussion," the first one told me. "Often a patient won't remember the incidents leading up to the concussion, even if someone else tells them repeatedly."

"So he definitely has a concussion then?" I asked.

"That's what the brain scans, the vomiting, and the loss of consciousness and memory would indicate. I'm willing to bet your brother is also quite tired right now." The second scientist turned to Garret, who nodded.

"I have a wretched headache too." He added.

"That's normal. Now, like I said, the concussion will heal itself after time. Garret needs ample rest. You three will have to observe him to make sure the swelling and bleeding isn't worsening."

"How do we do that?" Tiffany asked.

"Garret should not have a worse headache or vomiting after resting. He should also not be having seizures, convulsions, difficulty using the arms and legs, or begin bleeding out of his ears or mouth."

"Is there ever a time when he should be doing those things?" Clyde asked sarcastically. The second scientist smiled a bit.

"No, likely not. But now more than ever. When he goes to sleep, make sure you wake him up every few hours. Check that he's not experiencing these things, and make sure his pupils are the same size."

"Alright." I nodded, my eyes fixed on the first scientist. He had begun checking the rest of Garret for signs of injury. He found the bruise at his throat, poked at it a bit (causing Garret to wince) and then continued on, checking limbs and joints.

"We're going to have to undress him to check for further injuries." The first scientist declared. "Are you three going to stay in the room for that?"

"Can't you just ask him if anything hurts?" I asked irritably.

"When a patient goes into shock, they often can't feel some if not all their injuries." The first scientist didn't even fully turn towards me to say this. I was starting to get really mad at this guy.

"First of all, you will look me in the eyes when you're talking to me. Understand?" The man's mouth tightened into a hard line, but he turned to me and nodded. "Secondly, Garret definitely felt it when you jabbed him in the throat just there."

"I was checking for-"

"I don't give a damn! If you're going to treat my brother, you're going to do it with _respect_, got it?"

Oh, did that ever piss him off. But I was still his superior, and he couldn't exactly fight with me. "Yes," he said.

"Yes what?"

He huffed. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Now, we're going to give Garret the privacy he deserves, and you're going to professionally and respectfully check him for injuries." He nodded. I looked at Garret again, expecting some kind of gratitude for the stand I took on his behalf, but the boy had again fallen asleep. Oh well. He still deserved respect. The three of us left to wait in the hall.

"I wonder what happened to his throat." Tiffany wondered.

"It looked to me like someone tried to choke him."

"But why would someone just attack Garret like that? I mean, it's not like he's one to go around pissing people off. Well, except for Clyde."

"Yeah, but Clyde's got a fairly solid alibi, seeing as he was with us the whole time." I smiled a little bit, for a second. "Garret said it had something to do with Scyther..." I pressed my palms over my eyes, feeling incredibly tired. "Shit. I can't think." I looked at the time on my phone. Eleven o'clock. "It's gonna be a long night, guys."

"At least there are three of us. We can each take turns waking Garret up," Tiffany said. When did she become such an optimist?

"Yeah, and once Garret's all back to his annoying self," Clyde pounded a fist into his hand and smiled, somewhat sadistically, "we can make the bastard who did this pay."

I locked eyes with him. "The son of a bitch is already dead." The three of us shared a look. Hell, even Tiffany looked like she wanted some revenge on the guy.

Just then the second scientist opened the door. "We're done our examination." He told us.

"That was fast." I commented, somewhat surprised.

"Your brother doesn't have any other serious injuries. There are a few minor bruises, which appear to have occurred when he lost consciousness, and some, ah, trauma to his groin. Apart from those, and a few minor defensive wounds, Garret's only concern is his concussion."

I nodded again. "Thanks."

"Keep your eye on him for the next few days. He may have a condition known as post-concussive syndrome, which usually manifests as a headache, dizziness or difficulty concentrating. This can last anywhere between a few days to a few weeks. Aside from the occasional awakenings you'll have to do, allow him to sleep for as long as he wants. Rest is when his brain will heal itself."

"Alright, no problem."

The first scientist appeared behind the second, joining us in the hall. "If it's okay with you, sir, we were told to report back to work after we finished with your brother." I noted a touch of sarcasm in his voice, but decided to let it pass.

"Fine. Go ahead; we'll keep our eyes on Garret." The first scientist nodded, and quickly left. The second quickly followed him, apparently eager to get back to work.

I watched him leave, and then the three of us went in to join our brother. We sat on the bed, and quickly did the math to see how many times we'd have to wake him up that night. If he slept for eight hours, we could each get up once to check on him. I rather thought that he'd sleep longer than that, but I knew we wouldn't, so the other checks would be easy. We decided who would wake up when, and then awkwardly went to sleep slouched against the wall. I don't think we had slept that close together since I was ten and Tiffany was five.

I was right. It was a very long night.

...

The next morning Garret was mostly back to himself, apart from some crankiness about being woken up so many times through the night, and the leftover pain from his injuries. I asked him again what had happened.

"I can't remember, bro." He shook his head. "I was walking out of Wintown, and it got really quiet. I was spooked, so I called Scizor and Scyther to my side. Then something hit me from behind, and..." he trailed off, and his brow again furrowed.

"And?" I prompted.

"And I think...I think it was a ranger," he said slowly, still working through his thoughts. "Or, at least, not someone who's on our side."

I almost rolled my eyes at this. If they were on our side, they would not have attacked him in the first place.

"Not on our side? No shit? I never would have guessed that." I teased him.

"I meant someone who's openly against us!" He snapped, much to my surprise. "It's not _just_ the Union we're up against, you know."

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Sounds like someone's a little cranky. Is it nappy time, little bro?"

His eyes flashed up to mine. "Don't treat me like I'm five." He seemed genuinely angry, and I couldn't help but be confused. Even sleep-deprived, this wasn't like Garret.

"I was just kidding around, bro. What's the matter with you?"

"I..." His eyes dropped to the bedsheets, and he seemed to calm down. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I guess I'm just tired."

I nodded. "Go back to sleep. Clyde or Tiffany can wake you up in a few hours. I'm going to go brush up on my Wintown ranger research."

He looked over at Clyde and Tiffany's still-sleeping forms. "Are _they_ going to be awake themselves?" He wondered. I shrugged.

"I'll just leave a note for whoever wakes up first to give you a good jab while you're sleeping." I smiled. "Better hope it's not Clyde."

I was expecting some stinging remark in response to this, but he just huffed and slumped back in his pillows. I guess he really was tired. I gave him a wave, left a note for Clyde and Tiffany, and went to my room.

I hadn't lied to him- I _was_ planning on brushing up on the rangers in Wintown. I couldn't help but feel that it had to be one of them who did this, especially since it had something to do with Scyther. But I didn't think that would take too long- there weren't that many rangers in Wintown, and it was clear from Garret's injuries that it was either a male or an alarmingly muscular female- and after I finished that I was going to get my own information on concussion symptoms. I didn't entirely trust Father's scientists.

I pulled out my laptop and quickly got into the Union's database using the method Father had taught us. Apparently, they hadn't changed their security despite having an entire organization gunning for their downfall. I snorted.

It took me all of two minutes to figure out which Wintown ranger we would be giving a little courtesy call. He was the highest ranking ranger in Wintown, apart from the area leader. Chris Edwards: received average grades in Ranger Academy, was first stationed in Pueltown before being relocated to Wintown, and had multiple charges of excessive violence. Partner pokemon: Scyther. Well. That told me pretty much everything I needed to know. I'd have a few grunts bring Mr. Edwards up here so we could have a little chat.

Next up was to Google 'concussion symptoms' and trust the internet to do the work for me. There were a lot of discussion pages on non-medical sites that I decided to skip over, but I eventually found what I was looking for.

Hmm...the internet seemed to agree with the scientists, saying that Garret's symptoms would last anywhere between a few days to a few weeks. Apparently, I could expect my little brother to be rather irritable and unfocused during that time too. I supposed that explained his behaviour earlier. My eyes narrowed as I read the next passage.

_Research shows that post-concussive syndrome can lead to depression and/or insomnia in certain cases. This may be from the concussion itself, or a result of the persistence of symptoms. Those who are already depressed are more likely to develop PCS, and should be observed closely after the incident._

"Depression..." I muttered under my breath. I wasn't concerned about the part stating that people already depressed should be concerned- Garret was a perfectly sane guy. Probably the sanest out of all of us, in fact. But the bit about developing depression scared me a little. Garret treasured his dignity, and his gentleman-like demeanour. Which meant that he also tended to have higher morals then the rest of us. Hence my concern over his hesitation with Charizard. Hence our little chat the other night. And hence, I suspected, his reasoning for voting against the Go Rock Squad at first. Garret was under a lot of stress right now, and normally I would simply let him deal with it in his own way, but after what happened...

No. Garret was a big boy. He wasn't going to let a few days in bed with a headache suck him into a full on mental disease. He was smarter than that. He had a good head on his shoulders. And besides, he had us to support him.

It was that last thought that had me reopening the Union profile on Chris Edwards. I read it through again, and then called for some grunts. They were there within minutes.

"Yes, sir?" There was a blonde haired female, and a rather goofy looking male. Well, most of the grunts were goofy looking, but this one was all lanky and boyish. But he was wearing a serious expression, and seemed to be respectful. I'd give him a chance.

"Are either of you familiar with the Wintown area?" I asked mildly, still sprawled across my bed looking at my laptop.

The girl shook her head, but the boy said, "yes, sir. I grew up in the area."

I nodded. "Good. Now then, agent...?"

"Patton, sir."

"Right. Agent Patton. Any dangerous pokemon in the area?" I didn't really have much of a plan at this point. I could make one up as I went though.

"One, sir. A steelix, in Panula cave."

I brought up steelix on the Union's pokemon database. It was ranked four out of five stars in capture difficulty. I could work with that.

"All right, you two. You know what happened to my brother?" They nodded. "Well, we- we being my siblings and I- are not going to take that lying down." I looked up from my laptop, and stared them in the eyes. "So...come here. I have a plan. We're going to need a few more grunts. Call my siblings, too."

Maybe I was getting too used to violence. Maybe I was overreacting, just a bit. Maybe I should have waited a bit longer, thought a bit harder. But Garret had been hurt. And I wasn't about to stand for that.

And besides, Tyranitar needed to stretch his muscles.


End file.
